Betrayed in Newsprint
by M. Rig
Summary: The only thing that hurts Brennan more than Hannah's career-ending accusations is knowing that Booth is the anonymous source who sold her out.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: My apologies for not posting in so long! I've been OOC (as in out-of-country, not out-of-character, although an argument could be made for that as well) but hoping to shake off my rust and start some writing again. My thanks for all those who reviewed while I've been out of contact, and I'm sorry I haven't yet thanked you individually. Special shout-out to bunny888, who caught me in an embarrassing vocabulary snafu. LOL... thanks for your sharp eyes! (Legal jargon: still don't own these characters, no infringement intended, etc.)**

Angela Montenegro struggled against a yawn as she settled herself at Hodgin's eat-in kitchen. _Not Hodgin's,_ she corrected herself wryly, _the kitchen of the Montenegro-Hodgins._

"Something funny?" her husband asked her. With his half-open plaid bathrobe, disheveled curls, and a sprinkle of sleep crusties at the corners or his eyes, he offered a wealth of possible answers to his own question.

"Nothing," she chose to demur, laughing softly to herself. "But I'll take some of that orange juice if you're pouring."

Hodgins slid a glass down the counter with a bartender's flourish and waggled his eyebrows at his lovely wife as he poured. "Two fingers or four?" he teased.

"Better make it a double. I'm drinking for two, you know."

He leaned in to kiss his wife on her forehead. "Maybe that's why you're twice as lovely all of a sudden."

Angela couldn't stop from rolling her eyes, even as she smiled at him. "You're twice as corny, so what does that mean you're carrying?"

He laughed and shrugged, distracted by the adorably rumpled look of his wife first thing in the morning. "You know what? I … have no idea.. I've lost the metaphor. Maybe after some coffee..."

"Take a shower and think it over," she suggested wryly, settling back on her chair and snapping open the day's newspaper.

Her eyes lit almost immediately on a very familiar name, set in boldface type right on the first page.

"Jack...?" she called him back, as her eyes scanned the first few paragraphs of the article.

"What is it?"

"There's a story about Bren in today's Post," she explained, her voice slow with tension.

Hodgins leaned in, reading over her shoulder. Their eyes grew wide at the same time, and Angela viciously flipped the page over without confirming that he was ready.

"...oh my God," she breathed.

Feeling all morning grogginess drop suddenly away, Hodgins raced towards the bedroom. "Hurry up!" he called, "We need to get to the lab!"

Angela scurried as quickly as her pregnant lady legs could carry her to her purse and fished around for her cell phone.

"Come on... pick up, pick up..." she muttered.

"_You've reached an audio recording of Dr. Temperance Brennan, as I am either unable or unwilling to answer my phone at this moment. If you choose to leave me a message, I may return it."_

"Dammit!" Angela immediately wrapped a hand over her burgeoning belly, as if she could shield her infant's ears from her cursing. "Alright, Booth, your turn..."

Across town, the FBI's best Special Agent was flooding a stack of the diner's pancakes with maple syrup when his cell phone chirped. "Booth," he answered, licking the messy residue of syrup from his fingertips.

"It's Angela—where are you?"

"What? Why? What's up?"

"Did you read this morning's Post? The article about Brennan?"

"The... what? What article? No..."

"Well you better get yourself a copy before you talk to her. And you know what else, Booth? I tried, really tried, to like Hannah. But this? This is _bullshit," _she swore fiercely, dropping her hand subconsciously over her stomach once again.

"Ange, I have no idea what you're talking about... hello? Ange?"

Scowling, Booth returned his phone to his pocket and checked the counter for abandoned newspapers. Finding a stack a few seats down, he flipped through the sections until he found the front page. The headline leaped out at him, dropping his jaw in surprise:

**DR. TEMPERANCE BRENNAN OF JEFFERSONIAN: CIA SPOOK?**

And there, nestled just under the inexplicable title, was his girlfriend's byline.

It had been Cam who had broken the news to Dr. Brennan, who had been ensconced in Limbo since just after dawn. Brennan hadn't been able to hide the shock that had initially crossed her expressive features, and Cam's heart had gone out to the colleague she now considered a friend. She wanted to stay, offer whatever comfort she could, but her phone had been ringing off-the-hook all morning with calls from concerned members of the Jeffersonian Board. Besides, Brennan had snatched the newspaper from her hands immediately and retreated to her office, utterly absorbed in the article, dismissing Cam as surely as a queen waving away her subject.

Brennan sat absently at her desk, staring without comprehension at the flashing message light on her desk phone. She had finished the article, but its words floated around her without meaning, like fluffs of cottonwood blooms, impossible to grab. It just didn't make sense. Why would Hannah choose to write an article about her at all? And why without warning? And why so... hurtful?

She had done her best to befriend the vivacious blonde, had allowed her to lay claim not only to all of Booth's free time but to her own sunglasses for goodness sake, had thought they were on friendly terms. But this...

Brennan's finger traced the gray, scalloped edge of the newspaper, as if she could coax understanding from it. The ink lines jumbled in her vision and she realized that she was tearing up. Unacceptable.

"You're suing her for slander!" Hodgins barked, sliding pellmell into her office with a similarly disheveled Angela in his wake. "I'll get you my own lawyers! I have this guy, Osserman, who makes a mongoose look polite!"

"Sweetie, sweetie, how are you?" Angela soothed, draping a hug over her shellshocked friend as best she could. "I guess you read it, huh?"

Brennan nodded, not really comprehending until their arrival how _public _this particular embarrassment actually was. "I..." she shrugged and shook her head, uncharacteristically silent.

"I'm serious-" Hodgins continued, looking irate, "This is nothing more than a hatchet-job character assassination. She has no evidence, no facts, nothing to accuse you of—she's just dragging your name through the mud on hearsay and suspicion-"

"I know that," Brennan sighed. "Which means I really can't sue her for slander. I mean, look at this," Brennan gestured weakly at the paper in front of her. "She never comes out and _states _that I've done anything wrong. The whole thing is just questions. Questions crafted to make me look as bad as possible."

"_With shadowy details of Dr. Brennan's many trips to volatile foreign countries now emerging, and her inexplicably high level of security revealed, should the American taxpayers be asking themselves why the Jeffersonian's government grants fund off-record CIA operatives?" _Brennan read aloud, her mouth twisting in disgust. "It's all worded so that it's not actually accusatory!"

"Oh Bren," Angela sighed, reaching for her friend's hand. "We'll figure this out. People are too smart to believe this type of... of..."

"-yellow journalism!" Hodgins shouted.

Angela continued, "This will all just blow over soon enough."

"I'm not so sure about that," Cam sighed, entering Brennan's office with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She sank down onto the couch with a weary lack of grace. "The board members aren't happy about this... and a few of them are calling for Dr. Brennan's immediate resignation."

"What?" Angela gasped. "You must be joking..."

"The Jeffersonian is an apolitical scientific institution, Angela. This idea that our scientists are running around... doubling as CIA operatives is... well, it doesn't help our image, and it won't help us continue to receive funding."

"Last I checked, the CIA was a government agency, Cam, just like the FBI. Nobody has a problem with us solving all the FBI's cases," Hodgins sneered.

"The FBI is not the CIA," she reminded him. "The Federal Bureau of Investigations is totally above-board, letter of the law. The CIA is... covert, sneaky. It just doesn't help our image."

"_Our_ image?" Hodgins challenged.

Cam raised her hands in self-defense. "I'm just explaining their viewpoint, I'm not agreeing with them."

"But this isn't even true- surely we can demand a retraction or something from the Post..." Angela continued.

Brennan, who had been frozen as the conversation whirled around her, snapped to life. "It's not entirely untrue," she said quietly.

She could feel their eyes turn towards her in unison.

She took a deep breath and tried to make them understand. "I had just finished my doctorate when a CIA agent contacted me, asked me to identify some remains found in Guatemala. He said I had a chance to serve my government, that it was completely safe, that it would be a straight-forward identification and that was all."

The silence in the room stretched painfully around her as she recalled the events of years long past. "I can't tell you any more than that; the information is classified. But the trip wasn't as straight-forward as they had promised." She paused, clenching her shaking hands together. "I told the CIA I would never work for them again."

Hodgins flopped down onto the couch next to Cam, his conspiracy-loving mind swirling dizzily around this new information. Angela simply gazed at the floor; this story wasn't entirely unknown to her. Brennan wondered if they were judging her, lowering their opinion of her, and so she had to fight to keep her voice steady as she spoke again, quietly but intensely.

"I never broke any laws, and I was deceived by the CIA as to the true nature of the work they wanted me to do. I did nothing wrong. Please...believe me."

Three sets of eyes locked despairingly on hers.

"Oh sweetie, we know," Angela assured her, offering her another hug.

"What're you supposed to do when the government demands your participation anyway?" Hodgins reasoned. "Not your fault, Dr. B."

Cam sighed, digging her thumbs into her temples without relief. "Maybe... maybe we can just buy time and the Board will settle down... "

"That's kind of you, Cam, but I infer from their resignation request that my continuing association with the Jeffersonian is a liability to the institution as well as you, my immediate superior. I don't want to harm your career."

Cam leaned forward, watching the other woman earnestly. "To be clear here, I'm not asking you to fall on your sword, Dr. Brennan. I'll support you as long as I possibly can. You're a good scientist, and this institution needs you."

Glancing away from the intensity of the moment, Brennan cleared her throat awkwardly. "Thank you, Cam."

Angela launched herself away from Brennan, pacing the office angrily. "Well none of this addresses the fact that Booth's gifrlfriend is a slimey little weasel-"

"Angela," Brennan murmured.

"No, I'm right, Bren! Come on! With one little, conniving article, she could lose you your job! You have to have some feelings about that? Some _anger?_ I mean, _I _have some anger on your behalf—more than some!"

"I'm not angry," Brennan replied. "I'm... confused."

"How could she _do this?_" Angela continued to whine. "How could Booth _let her do this?_"

"Woah," Cam interrupted. "Why do you assume Booth knew about this?"

"Please," Angela sniffed, her pretty face contorted with anger. "How can you jump to his defense, Cam?"

"-All I'm saying is that the Booth we know would never throw his partner under the bus like this-"

"-The Booth _we know_ hasn't been here in months because there's a _new_ Booth who spends all his time sucking face with this deceitful little ...little... _shrew_ … and doesn't care about this team anymore-"

"I know how this looks, Angela, but I just don't see Seeley doing something like-"

"He's thinking with his _little _brain and now he's ruining everything-"

"STOP!" Brennan shouted, unable to watch her two friends spiral any lower. "Please, just stop. There's no reason to take this out on each other. And as for Booth's culpability... well, I'm afraid there's no question of that," she said sadly.

"What does that mean?" Hodgins asked.

"This paragraph: _Dr. Brennan's personal history—one of criminal origins, abandonment of the birth name Joy Keenan, years in the foster care system after the apparent death of her parents, and physical and mental abuse sustained at the hands of a foster father—suggest a humble beginning. According to anonymous sources, the foster father who abused her left her with both physical and emotional scars. How she raised herself to become a pillar of her discipline and a best-selling author remains mysterious. How could a young woman with no family or financial security achieve so much at an early age? In light of her covert government activities, is it possible that the CIA funded her education?_" Brennan paused to catch her breath before explaining the only evidence she needed of Booth's guilt, a fact that had quietly but swiftly crushed her heart when she'd first read the article that morning.

"Booth is the only one I ever told about my foster father. The details are in my record, yes, but not the part about... about the physical scars," Brennan whispered. "Hannah couldn't have known that if he hadn't told her. Booth must be the anonymous source. No one else knew."

At that moment, Booth strode into his partner's office, finding the entire squint squad looking up at him with expressions he could barely understand. Shock, betrayal, hurt, and from the most beautiful set of blue eyes he had ever seen, soul-destroying sadness. He had expected their irritation and anger, but the intensity in the room seemed so much deeper.

The first thought that entered his mind was that maybe he should have finished Hannah's article before racing over there.

"Bones... what... what's going on?" he gulped.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Holy tamoley! You guys have outdone yourselves with the helpful reviews! To be honest, I'm a bit nervous about letting you down now...lol. I wrote this up as soon as I had some spare time. And now I'm going to toddle off and start on my review replies! Thanks again. : )**

They all stared at him—disappointment, shock, heartbreak all etched into the features of his friends. It was like one of those bad dreams that didn't even make sense—the kind where you just knew that everything was about to go horribly wrong, and you couldn't stop it because you couldn't even understand what was happening.

"Bones?" he repeated hesitantly.

"Could you all just give us a minute?" Brennan asked them quietly, relieved that they filed out dutifully, though with an air of funereal sadness. Only Angela glanced at her with an unspoken question in her eyes. The soft click of her office door closing behind them felt like the period at the end of a sentence and Brennan didn't know how to start the next one.

Booth stood nervously, focused entirely on his partner's shattered expression, as his mind spun helplessly.

"I'm sorry, Bones. I've been trying to get a hold of Hannah to figure this out but she's not answering her phone. I had no idea she was writing this."

Her eyes snapped to his, suddenly fierce. "Don't lie to me, Booth."

His breath raced from his lungs in surprise. "I'm not lying! I... you have to believe I would never..."

Brennan shot out of her chair, her hands slapping down onto her desk with a percussive crack. The anger she couldn't muster before towards Hannah redirected itself at the pale face of her partner. "Scars, Booth! _The foster father who abused her left her with both physical and emotional scars_!" she hissed, her jaw almost too tight to speak.

"What happened to 'what's between us is ours', huh? I tell one little story about eggs in meatloaf to a man I was dating and I apparently hurt you _deeply_ but what's this? You get to tell your girlfriend all about my history? About my _abuse_?"

"-Bones, wait, I..."

"Do you have any idea how this feels? To have my integrity questioned in a _newspaper_? For the world to read? To have my personal history inked out for people's amusement? To have my achievements used as _evidence_ against me, as if my success is somehow proof of wrongdoing?"

"-Okay, to be honest, I didn't finish reading it and I clearly need to because-"

"You! You're the _anonymous source_! You! I can barely believe it, but you're the only one who knew about those scars! Do you know who knows about them now, Booth? Everybody!"

"Bones-"

"I don't understand. I just... Booth, I don't understand. You said you needed to move on, and," she choked, swallowing a sob, refusing to show him the weakness of crying like a child, "and I have given you that space! I have tried to remove myself to the periphery of your life in order to make Hannah feel comfortable, and I have tried to act like it doesn't hurt—"

"Wait—what do you mean, hurt?" he whispered, anxiety-stricken. "When have I hurt you?"

"Every day!" she screamed, her voice cracking with misery. She forced herself to steady, staring down at her own hands, white-knuckled fists that surprisingly seemed to be shaking.. So quiet that she could barely hear herself over the roaring of blood in her ears, she persevered. "You hurt me every day, Booth. You were my best friend and now... now you're an acquaintance. And you've given away my most painful secrets so that your girlfriend could score a story."

His face had lost all color. He had no idea what to say, how to begin to make this right when he couldn't even think through the panic flaying his body. He hurt her every day? He _was _her best friend, past tense? He'd given away her secrets?

His shocked gawping was interrupted by a terse knock on the door. One of the lab assistants opened the door and stepped in, not waiting for an answer. "Flowers were delivered for you, Dr. Brennan."

The spray of yellow roses were arranged in a plain ceramic vase, a seemingly innocuous but horribly timed pause in the middle of a cataclysmic argument, and their sudden presence in the room felt surreal.

The assistant set them on Brennan's desk and fished the small florist's card out for Brennan. "They smell nice," he shrugged, oblivious to the scene he had interrupted. "Who are they from?"

Agog, Brennan could only stare at the clueless, scruffy-haired young man as the uncomfortable silence snowballed.

"Give me that," Booth growled, grabbing the card from his hand and ushering him out the door with an unnecessary amount of force, slamming the door behind him.

Brennan continued to stare at the sunny-colored flowers, feeling stretched suddenly between hysterical sobbing and maniacal laughter.

"Listen, Bones," Booth started quietly, "I'm going to talk to Hannah and get this all straightened out. Okay? I would _never _abuse your trust or try to hurt you. I hope you know that. We'll, um... I'll just..." he was distracted by the familiar writing on the card in his hand, and frowned in surprise.

He risked a glance at his still-silent partner before opening the card, knowing it was an invasion of privacy but recognizing his girlfriend's loopy cursive writing and needing suddenly, desperately to know what she had to say to Bones.

_Dr. Brennan, hope you liked the story! I think the whole super-secret-spy thing could help you sell some books! Lunch next week? -Hannah_

Speechless, Booth dropped the card to the desk, his arms hanging like dead weight at his sides.

Brennan still wouldn't face him, couldn't risk eye contact when she felt like she was stuck in an illogical and convoluted nightmare.

"Who are they from?" she asked, in an oddly calm voice.

"Hannah," he swallowed.

She laughed once, a single, bitter note before her eyes released the weight of unshed tears. "She ruined my career. She sent me flowers," she whispered.

"I'm going to figure this out, Bones," he vowed.

"I have _tried _my best to put your happiness before my own, Booth, I have tried. But this..." sputtering for words, she swiped a hand angrily at the tears leaking out from her reddened eyes.

"How could you betray me like this?" she whispered, anguish painted on her delicate face.

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"So what do we do, if she leaves?" Angela asked, idly drawing figure-eights on her distended tummy.

She and Hodgins had found a quiet corner of the lab, not knowing how to either start working or return home. To Angela, it felt like the floor was shifting underneath her; a stable surface that she'd always taken for granted and now couldn't find a safe footing on.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, swiping a hand across his unshaven cheek. "I mean, on one hand, it's not like we _have _to stay in DC. I mean, we don't have family here..."

"We have family," Angela replied passionately. "And Bren is part of it.."

"Hey, I know that. I just meant, traditional family like grandparents and stuff, for when the baby comes. I guess I'm saying that we're not really tied down. We can go wherever."

"Maybe we could go with her," Angela whispered. "It just doesn't seem right... her having to leave. And just... start over somewhere, like she's being punished for something that's not her fault?"

"Is that crazy?" she asked hesitantly.

Hodgins turned to face his wife, cocking his head curiously in that way he had of analyzing her, as if he could understand the machinations of her mind by studying her eyes more closely.

"We can go wherever we want, baby," he swore.

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"Take these," Brennan said, shoving the mocking vase of flowers across her desk. "Take these and get them out of my office."

"Whatever you want," he agreed rapidly, sensing a change in her mood. The tears had stopped leaking down her cheeks, which was good because each drop felt like a dagger through his heart. But bad, because the despair she'd been suffering seemed to have been replaced instantaneously by a steely resolve, a cold control that shut him out. He wasn't really sure which was worse.

"But I'm going to figure this out, Bones," he repeated. "I don't know how this happened... I … I don't really know a lot right now but I'll figure it out."

"Fine."

"But then we'll talk, right? I mean, I feel like there's been a serious misunderstanding here, and..."

"I don't have much more to say, Booth."

He swallowed. "Bones, come on! Just give me some time to get to the bottom of this."

"If you need time to wrap your mind around the situation," she continued icily, "by all means, go at your own pace. I, however, feel like I've reached a valid conclusion, and I have nothing more to say to you at this time."

Booth flinched like he'd been struck.

He stood staring at her, unable to simply walk away, unable to defend himself, unable to envision how things could ever be okay after this. Just unable.

But he must have left, somehow. He must have forced one leg to step and then follow it with the other, because he found himself shuffling absently towards the exit, his fingers wrapped in a death-grip around the edge of the flower vase. He must have made it at least as far as Cam's office, because her voice accosted him as certain as a fist.

"Seeley. A minute of your time please?" she asked in a tone that conveyed more demand than question.

She ushered him into her office, pulling his big body stubbornly by the elbow. He moved like a sleepwalker.

"Please tell me you're not the anonymous source," she hissed.

His stricken eyes rose helplessly to meet hers and he shook his head in confusion. "I don't know what's going on," he whispered.

"What's going on is this: I'm in danger of losing my entire team, Seeley. I've got the Jeffersonian Board of Directors calling for Dr. Brennan's resignation-"

"-What?" he gasped.

"-and now I've got Angela and Hodgins coming in here telling me that they're going with her, to...whatever lab is lucky enough to apparently steal my entire team right out from under me. Do you think it's easy to put together a team like this? That people of this caliber can be quickly replaced? Or that anyone at the Jeffersonian is going to blithely allow me to keep _my _job after my entire team walks out?"

"Wait a minute, this can't possibly... it was just an article... and I mean, nobody reads newspapers anymore... this has to blow over. It... it has to..."

"Your _girlfriend _has destroyed more than one career today, don't you get that?" she demanded. "How could you let this happen?"

"Cam, I swear I didn't know she was writing a story on Bones, I _swear."_

"Do you really expect me to believe that _your girlfriend _wrote a story about _your partner _without you having any idea?"

"I..."

Cam's face drained of all expression, her anger and anxiety crystallizing into terrible disappointment. "So you're either a shitty partner or a shitty boyfriend. Which is it?"

Booth sucked in a startled breath, to defend himself, to lash out at Cam who was clearly trying to hurt him as much as possible. But he had nothing to say. So he just gritted his jaw and turned away, needing to escape before saying something he regretted. He was getting more than a little tired of the drama and nobody was giving him a chance to figure out what had gone wrong. Nobody was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

After years of working together, they were all just assuming the worst of him, as if he would _ever _knowingly expose his partner to harm. How could they believe him capable of such... deceit? They _knew _him, and yet—they all seemed to think it was possible, or even probable, that he would give up his partner's confidence for a single story.

As he left the lab, oblivious to the crossed-arm wall of Angela and Hodgins angrily guarding Brennan's door, he began to wonder how, when he wasn't paying attention, his entire team had begun to form such a low opinion of him that this kind of betrayal even seemed possible.

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	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I'm a jerk! I took the advice of some reviewers and decided to write the next chapter rather than work on my backlog of review replies. So if you haven't gotten a thank you yet, I'm very sorry. And very strapped for time this week. So I might continue being a jerk until I finish out the story. My bad. : ( **

Booth found himself gazing down at the quartz-speckled formica of his kitchen table. Hannah still wasn't answering her phone and he knew this wasn't the kind of conversation he could bring to her office. So he contacted dispatch and took a personal day, finding the orderly sense of crisis management the military had distilled in him. First things first.

And first, he needed to understand just what the hell was going on.

The two pieces of evidence lay spread out before him on the table, both paper, both covered with words written by the woman he believed he loved. Evidence. The small florist's card came first; he reread Hannah's message to Bones, attempting to puzzle together her intentions. This at least seemed to indicate that Hannah had been unaware of how much trouble her article would cause for Bones. The breezy offer of lunch spoke of her innocence. The idea that the accusations in the newspaper might have an upside, namely helping Bones sell a few more books, made it seem like Hannah had unknowingly made a mistake.

Okay, so that was good at least.

He set the card aside and swallowed a lump of foreboding as he reached for the paper. The big-type heading jumped out at him again, and he had to shake off the feeling that this could still all be a strange and unfortunate dream.

So he forced himself to read, as the vintage clock that hung over his fridge ticked out the seconds.

After only four rotations of that ticking second-hand, Booth sat back in his chair and refolded the paper, hoping more than ever that the whole thing was a dream. Because if it was real, he was now face-to-face with the realization that the squints hadn't been overacting; that Bones was justified in feeling unfairly attacked and publicly vulnerable; that Hannah was either moronically oblivious or cruelly manipulative.

And most horrifyingly: that yes, he _had _been the anonymous source.

His mind drifted back in time to the evening, a few weeks prior, sitting at the very same table, when he had stupidly, tragically, betrayed his partner without a second thought...

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"_You and Temperance have an interesting dynamic, don't you?"_

"_What? Um, I don't know if it's that interesting. We sort of keep each other on our toes, think differently, you know? Pretty standard partnership."_

"_Well you seem like friends at least. I mean, you're friendly outside of work, right?"_

"_Yeah, of course... we're friends. We've been through a lot over the years. Why so interested all of a sudden?"_

"_I just want to understand her better. I've never met someone so... I'm not sure how to describe her. And it's sometimes hard for me to comprehend the two of you as friends."_

"_Why's that?"_

"_You're just so different. You're like polar opposites. Usually that sort of... chemistry... doesn't end up in friendship, that's all."_

"_We're just work partners, Hannah. Friends. You have nothing to worry about."_

"_I guess time will tell..."_

"_What is that supposed to mean?"_

"_Just that I'm new here, in your town, in your life. I'm meeting the whole cast of characters and trying to figure out how they fit in, that's all."_

"_She likes you. If you give her a chance, you might like her too."_

"_It's just that... what I don't understand is why you seem to act like the man in her life. I mean, doesn't she ever date? I know you say you're just friends, but I'd feel better if she was out there... you know, trying to meet other people..."_

"_Bones doesn't have the best track record with dating... it's not her fault. Well, sometimes it's her fault... but really she just seems to attract losers. And even if she were to find Mr. Right some day..."_

"_What? What's the problem?"_

"_Nothing... just... she has some issues with things that have happened in her past. Things that make her understandably not want to trust people."_

"_Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push—maybe I shouldn't have asked."_

"_Hannah, stop. It's okay—how could you have known?"_

"_It's just that it makes a lot of sense. Knowing how protective you are. In a way it's comforting, because I understand it now. Why the two of you are so close."_

"_She was in foster care after her parents disappeared. It wasn't easy. She had one foster father who... I shouldn't even be talking about this but... I just want you to understand that it's not easy for her to open up and trust people. And she trusts me now; I'm her friend. It's not something I can just walk out on because we're dating, okay?"_

"_Poor Dr. Brennan... was it, I mean... was it very very bad? This foster father?"_

"_Let's just say she still has scars. Physical and emotional. And I need you to understand her place in my life even though... I realize this is asking a lot of the woman I'm romantically involved with. I need you to know that I'm not going to be the next person to abandon her."_

"_I'd never ask you to..."_

"_I just want that to be clear. There's not much I wouldn't do for you, for our relationship. But Parker and Bones are permanent parts of my life. I need you to be okay with that."_

"_Baby, shhhh. Of course I'm okay with that."_

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"Oh God, Bones,"he whispered, his head falling into his shaking hands as he staggered under the realization that he _had_ betrayed her after all. He had made a mistake, had trusted the wrong person. And now Bones was paying for that mistake.

He hadn't aimed to share her secrets. He'd just wanted to be open, to be a good boyfriend. Those were the kinds of things you should be able to trust the person sharing your life with. He'd wanted to make Hannah understand firmly, and from the start, that Bones was a non-negotiable part of his life. Part of the package of living with him. Part of his world. He'd wanted to protect his relationship with Bones. It was horribly well-intentioned, really.

But he still shouldn't have shared so much of her past with a woman she barely knew. Bones' secrets weren't his to divulge, regardless of his intentions. He had just flat-out messed up.

It all hit him at once, how much blame was yoked around his shoulders, the weight and finality of it. He looked back in time, at the first case that had taken him to Bones, to a lecture hall full of rapt squintlets and the gorgeous presenter who defied all his expectations. The first moment they made eye contact, he'd felt a vibration echo deep inside his body, a tone sustained. And he'd been as nervous as a tuning fork, but doing his best to hide it.

He wondered now if that moment was a bad omen for Bones. If his entrance into her life was a continuing bad luck charm: getting her hurt in the field, getting her shot-stabbed-beaten-buried, causing her grief and worry, ruining her career. Maybe all the misfortune in the past few years of her life could have been avoided by rewinding, like a worn VHS tape, until the picture returned to that lecture hall. To click Stop before his hand reached to open that door. Before he asked if she believed in fate.

He never would have thought, before this day, that he was fated to bring suffering to her life. But it seemed so obvious now that if they had never met, she would most likely never have been hurt all those times, and would most likely be enjoying the successes of a brilliant ongoing career.

There was no pain like causing the sadness of the one you loved. Which made him wonder again how Hannah could have done something so thoughtless if she even loved him at all.

As if drawn by his thoughts, a key slid in the lock and she entered, her Botticelli curls bouncing cherubically around her face.

"Hey! I didn't know you'd be home," she said breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" he countered quietly.

"I just forgot a few folders this morning... hey! Did you get me flowers?" she smiled, her eyes lighting on the bouquet of yellow roses. "This is such a coincidence because this is the same arrangement I picked out for..." she glanced at his unsmiling features and back to the flowers, and then to the card on the table. "Why do you have the flowers I sent to Temperance?"

He stood slowly, studying her incredulously. "I read your article."

She smiled. _Smiled._ "Did you like it? I'm pretty excited, I mean, page One, above-the-fold! It's a big win for me."

"Did I like it?" he repeated numbly.

"I'm not saying it's Pulitzer-quality or anything, but it's definitely provocative. I think the whole spy thing adds a nice dimension of mystery to her image, don't you?"

He curled his fingers into fists, marshaling every fiber of patience in his being.

"What's wrong?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"_How could you?"_ he managed.

The shock on her face was _almost _credible. Anyone who didn't know her would have been completely fooled, but he saw the recognition behind her eyes, and he knew that for all her innocent-seeming bluster, she had at least expected this reaction.

"I'm a reporter, Seeley. This is what I do. I have a right—no, an obligation—to question public figures. And she's a public figure," she replied formally. It sounded rehearsed.

"You sold me out," he growled.

"I did _nothing_ to you, Seeley. This story was about your partner. This is why I didn't tell you- I knew you'd take it too personally."

"It IS personal, Hannah!" he yelled, unable to control the volume of his voice any longer. "What Bones and I do IS personal—it's not just a job. It's our life. It's my cosmic balance sheet. It's my _soul _on the line and she helps me! Every day!"

"I can't believe that you can't even be happy for me that I've managed to get a respectable byline again. I don't know if you thought about this," she hissed, "but my career took a big hit when I left Afghanistan. I did that for _you_!"

"I never asked you to!" he roared.

"Well I haven't heard much complaining about it!" she retorted angrily. "You can't even be a little proud of me? Even a fraction as much as you're proud of your precious _Bones_ every day?"

"You expect me to be proud of you! You printed slander and accusations and half-truths about my partner! You took the information I gave you in confidence and used it to hurt her!"

"Oh please—most of that story was public record," she sneered. "Anybody who took the time to do their homework could have found the same things. And I protected you- I listed you as an anonymous source, even though that weakened the credibility of my piece!"

"How many murderers do you think are going to walk because you got Bones taken off FBI cases, huh, Hannah?"

"I never came out and actually accused her of anything!" she shouted.

"Yeah, because you didn't have the guts to do it!"

"Are you kidding me, Seeley?"

He grabbed the roses and flung them furiously at the kitchen wall where they shattered into a storm of ceramic shards and broken yellow petals. Hannah gasped and clapped her hands over her stunned face.

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT!" he bellowed. "This could cost her her career! I've lost my partner! Does that make you happy, Hannah? Maybe you like that, huh? Less to be jealous of?"

Her eyes watered with fear and surprise. "I wasn't _jealous,_" she ground her teeth.

"Oh you weren't? Jealous of the fact that Bones holds a place in my life that you never could?"

She scoffed bitterly. "And what place exactly is that, Seeley?"

"Someone I can TRUST!"

The tears she'd held back sprung to life, and she swabbed her hand clumsily across her face, leaving a smudge of mascara on her cheek. "I—okay, so maybe I should have talked to you first."

"What do you think I would have said, Hannah?" he chuckled sarcastically, throwing his arms up in a gesture of helplessness. "Go ahead and stab my partner in the back? This is insane," he sighed. He flopped heavily down into a chair, feeling weariness settle in his muscles almost painfully.

He looked up at his girlfriend, and noticed once again how beautiful she was. Her golden hair, athletic curves, perfect pouty lips. But now he felt like he could truly _see _her for the first time. And she was _ugly._

"When you betrayed her, you betrayed me. It's that simple," he whispered.

"I've done nothing wrong," she vowed. "I'm sorry that you can't see that."

"I want you out of my home. As soon as possible."

He sat at the table as she packed her scant belongings, not even trusting her enough to be alone in his apartment. The muffled, passive-aggressive slamming of dresser drawers fell gladly on his ears. Maybe he would have regrets later, about how this relationship had ended. Maybe he would miss Hannah and wish things had gone differently. But then again, maybe he hadn't really loved her in the first place, because this part felt too easy. He was thankful, even, to see this side of her before their lives became more tangled. Before Parker came to rely on her presence in his life. Before he did something monumentally stupid like propose marriage based more on the hopes of a future than a celebration of the present.

It felt good. Like excising-a-brain-tumor good. He couldn't change the mistakes he'd made because of this relationship, but he could at least wake up tomorrow morning in a better place. And that was progress. Progress that he needed to revel in right now, because God knew he needed something to hold onto.

There was a kernel of truth, though, in one thing she'd said. In a way, she really had done nothing wrong. Because truly, he realized, the blame lay solely on him.

He dug out his cell and scanned through his contact list, unable to hide a bitter grin as he heard luggage zippers being yanked angrily shut.

Hannah appeared in his peripheral vision, struggling under the weight of a menagerie of duffel bags.

"I guess this is goodbye," she ventured.

"Yeah, bye. Whatever," he replied, glancing up before returning to his phone. She hesitated another moment before shuffling towards the door.

"Take care," she tried again.

He waved his hand casually in response, not bothering to turn around. It felt _great. _

And with that, she was gone. And he could move on to the next matter of business.

First things first.

He hit Send and lifted the phone to his ear. "Rick? Hey, this is Seeley Booth. How you doing, man? Yeah, alright. Listen, I won't hold you up—I need to call in that favor after all."


	4. Chapter 4

**Long AN: First of all, my apologies this update took so long. Unexpected business trip. I'm very sorry. : (**

**Also, thank you again for taking the time to give me feedback. I truly value hearing from you. A few of you have been candid that this story is somewhat out-of-character for your taste. It's true that with this particular fic, I'm getting a little indulgently 'over-the-top' on purpose, simply because I'm having fun with it. Next time I'll post an 'out of character' warning at the start of the story so you can avoid if it's not your style. Thanks to all!**

"Thank you- of course. I'll be in touch soon."

Angela flitted around the edge of Brennan's desk, like a brightly-painted butterfly, her eyes lit with questions as she eavesdropped.

"Thank you again. Goodbye." Temperance returned the phone to its cradle, looking up at Angela with a small smile.

"Yeah?" Angela asked, breathless.

"Yeah."

"Sweeeeeetie!" she squealed, basking in the momentary relief of something going _right_ for a change. It was a much-needed respite from the previous day. "This is good, you know? I mean, I really think this is good."

Brennan smiled softly. "I'm inclined to agree. In many ways, Stanford's forensics lab rivals the Jeffersonian. And with my—well, _our,"_ she included her friend gracefully, "involvement, it could truly become a premier laboratory. Their academic credentials are obviously beyond reproach."

Angela smiled broadly. "Yeah, and more importantly, it doesn't snow in Palo Alto. Ever. This is going to be amazing. San Francisco's right down the road... and really good sushi...and lemon trees just growing in the yard... I really think that I might be meant to live in California," she laughed.

"Angela," Brennan paused, her face more serious. "While I appreciate... deeply, the idea that you and Hodgins would be willing to uproot your lives and leave your jobs behind to come with me, I am still concerned that you might regret the decision. Or that you might find your positions at Stanford lacking somehow. Or that..."

"-what are you really saying, Bren?"

Brennan paused, chewing the corner of her lip thoughtfully. "I'm not often in the position of being responsible for anyone else's happiness, or career fulfillment. It's... I find it daunting."

"Hey, I know that in some ways it would be easier for you to do this yourself. I know that you could manage it. But I don't want you to have to. Really, if anything, we should be thanking you. I mean, my job here never would have existed in the first place without you. And I never would have met Hodgie. And neither of us would ever have been able to... to help people the way we do. I'm an artist, you know? I expected to be poor and bohemian and tortured. This..." she laughed, gesturing at the sterile lab beyond Brennan's office door, "I never expected this. But I _love _this work. I love helping people. And I have you to thank for all of it."

"You could continue helping people without my presence here, Angela," she pointed out.

"Wouldn't be the same," Angela shook her head soberly. "The reasons why I love my job aren't limited to the what and where, Bren. It's all about the who. You know I think of you as family—we both do. And besides, Hodgins is _overjoyed _at the opportunity to stick it to the man," she laughed.

"Stick it to... I'm not sure I understand..."

"Basically, Bren... if the Jeffersonian is really superficial enough to risk an asset like you out of concern about their image, well then they deserve to lose a few good people."

Brennan smiled. "Loyalty."

"Yes," Angela agreed.

"Like the time you perjured yourself in court because you refused to testify against me."

Angela smiled again. "I knew it was right at the time, and I've never regretted it. I feel the same way right now."

Brennan swallowed a lump in her throat. The last 24 hours seemed to have lodged its miseries most firmly in her tear ducts, because she had never before felt so on the verge of constantly crying.

"You're an amazing friend, Angela."

Taking advantage of the moment, Angela rushed forward to claim a hug before Brennan's emotional gate had a chance to snap shut like a drawbridge. Laughing, she teased, "You just remember that when I call you in for babysitting duty."

xoxox xoxox xoxo ooxx xox xoxoxo xoxox xoxoxo ooxoxoxxox xoxoxx xoxox

Booth walked slowly towards the entrance of the Medico-Legal lab, feeling a sudden onrush of cowardice. He wished he could take his time, do some quality pacing, maybe flip his poker chip a couple times for good luck, but he couldn't. Because he'd brought a shadow with him that morning. Namely, in the shape of a creepy CIA agent who owed him a favor.

"Interesting space," the man muttered, looking around the stainless steel and glass environs.

"Well, you know. Scientists," Booth shrugged, unsure of a better explanation. "Her office is right over here," he explained, after a quick scan of the platform yielded no Bones. Each step seemed to increase the chill of anxiety in his veins. He was unsure what sort of reception he would be getting from his partner.

Knocking on her door lightly, which he told himself was out of politeness and not the fact that his arm was feeling so shaky with nerves that he could barely control it, he was surprised to find himself almost colliding with Angela, who was on her way out. If her half-yard of pregnant girth hadn't stopped him, her glacial expression surely would have.

"Why are you here?" she demanded rudely.

"Need to talk to Bones. I brought someone to meet her," he gestured at the man behind him, aware only of the level blue eyes he spied over Angela's shoulder.

"Hmmph," Angela grunted, begrudgingly moving out of their way after giving Rick the once-over. "Talk to you later, Sweetie," she called to Brennan, before shooting Booth one last scowl for good measure.

"Bones, this will only take a minute," he started, attempting to keep the terror out of his voice. "I'd like you to meet Agent Rick Andus, with the CIA. I asked him for his help dealing with the Post."

Pointedly declining to stand or shake the man's hand, Brennan remained seated behind her desk, her face a mask of composure.

"Rick's going to ask the Post for a retraction. I thought it would stronger coming from the CIA than from you."

"Fine," Brennan nodded curtly, turning her gaze back to her monitor.

Booth cleared his throat. He'd been expecting the cold shoulder, but this was _permafrost._ "The thing is, a normal retraction would be buried in the middle of the paper, and standard boilerplate, so I've asked Rick here to... you know, demand a more dramatic sort of apology from the paper. And to do his best to get it on Page One."

Brennan glanced at the man with Booth again. He was normal height, slightly heavy for his size, and had a face so entirely ordinary that she thought she might forget what he looked like in the space of a single blink. He was gazing with seeming interest around her office.

"Dramatic?" she inquired.

Agent Andus took the opportunity to insert himself into the conversation. "Dr. Brennan, the truth of the matter is that the CIA has never had a professional relationship with you or any involvement in your activities." His voice was oddly high-pitched and irritatingly melodic.

She blinked. "Well, that's not _entirely _true..."

"The truth of the matter is that the CIA has never had a professional relationship with you or any involvement in your activities," he repeated, his bland face tipped in an eerie smile.

Looking comically disgruntled, she turned to Booth. "Did he not understand me? I just disagreed with that statement."

"Bones, that's the point. The CIA is going to deny any involvement with you and demand an apology from the Post."

"But he's not telling the truth," she continued, pointing at the strangely smiling CIA agent.

"Yeah well, that's not really what the CIA does, Bones," Booth mumbled, shooting a sheepishly apologetic grin at the other man, who seemed to take no umbrage.

"I don't believe this is ethical."

"-Bones, listen-"

"The CIA is not in the habit, Dr. Brennan, of tolerating puff pieces written by green reporters that attempt to, or succeed to, _out _any of our operatives. The security of the United States population and interests take precedent over the right to a free press. In this case, as the CIA has never had a professional relationship with you or any involvement in your activities-"

"Why do you keep quoting that?" Brennan demanded, her face twisted in genuine confusion.

"-it is quite simple for me to threaten the paper with legal action unless an apology and retraction are immediately and prominently supplied, based on libel alone. Though this was brought to my attention by Agent Booth, I assure you that I'm just as unhappy with the content of that article as you are."

"I sincerely doubt that," Brennan scoffed.

"It would be one thing if the article had any factual accuracy, Dr. Brennan. But it doesn't. The truth of the matter is that the CIA has never had a professional relationship with you or any involvement in your activities," he repeated _again._

Aghast, Brennan turned to Booth. "I don't believe this man is in control of his mental faculties."

Sighing deeply, Booth tried to wrap up the conversation. "Listen, Bones, all you need to know is that the CIA is going to get you that retraction, and a good one, courtesy of Rick here. Okay?"

Still shaking her head in confusion, she shrugged. "Fine."

"Great. It'll be in tomorrow's paper," Booth concluded with false enthusiasm. Turning to Agent Andus, he gestured to the door. "I'll be right with you, Rick."

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Brennan." The man somehow managed to keep the creepy smile plastered across his mouth while speaking.

Not realizing that her lip had curled in ill-disguised disgust, Brennan nodded slowly, still studying the toad-like agent with wariness.

As soon as Agent Andus exited the room, Booth sought his partner's eyes. "I'm sorry about Rick. He's … a spook, a real one. CIA all the way. But he'll get the job done, okay? And listen, we need to talk. I know that you're upset and I don't blame you if you don't want to be around me, but I just want one chance to explain. Can I come back tonight?"

Hesitating, Brennan made a show of checking her daily calendar, trying to quickly decide whether or not to accede to his request. She genuinely wasn't ready for any more emotional wringing; she felt drained and off-kilter. And any apology that Booth could offer wouldn't be enough to change the fact that he had discussed the personal details of her foster care with his girlfriend, or that his girlfriend had been the cause of the Jeffersonian's resignation request.

"I'm sorry, I have plans tonight, Booth," she lied without looking away from her computer.

She somehow felt, more than saw, the air drain from his body. "Lunch, then. Tomorrow. You have to eat," he pushed.

"While that's obviously true, I don't need to eat with _you," _she pointed out, unaware of how hostile her remark sounded.

Booth ducked his head in defeat. He deserved this, he really did. But it had been years since she'd spoken to him with such antipathy. Not since the disastrous beginning of their partnership had she used such a condescending tone, and it made him feel small. Stung. He cleared his throat and forced himself to try again, though it would have been easier to slink away.

"Five years of partnership, Bones," he reminded her quietly. "I _need _this chance."

She looked up from her computer then, intrigued by the intensity of his voice. There was an expression on his face that she couldn't identify, even as she studied him carefully. She wanted to decline, but realized that this conversation would have to occur eventually. At least a lunch meeting would give her a night's rest to get those treasonous tear ducts under control. But principally, it was simple curiosity that caused her to agree. "I'll be here."

Feeling a slight load of dread lift itself from his collected burden, he muttered his genuine thanks and left to find Rick before the disturbing government agent ran into Hodgins.

Brennan closed her office door in his wake, breathing in the scent of his cologne. It didn't seem right that after hurting her so deeply, after making her so dreadfully angry, she could still take comfort in such a familiar smell.

Her evening's plans, such as they were, were to retrieve a few packing boxes from the supply room and get started wrapping up her books and breakables. She was determined not to outlast her welcome at the Jeffersonian; if the Board wanted her gone, she resolved to vacate quickly. It was best for Cam—best for everyone really.

So she evaluated her office space, cataloging the best course of action. Though the Jeffersonian had been her home for the last seven years, she had a well-learned repository of experience from her younger years to fall back on; she knew how to pack her things and go. She knew how to start over. She knew how to recognize when she was no longer wanted.

**AN: I know this chapter blew- it was more like a connective breath than the next part of the story- so I'm posting the next chapter immediately! : )**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Check out 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' by BrainySmurf6 for some masterful, brilliant angst. Sooooooooo good! Please join me in begging BrainySmurf6 for an update! : )**

The homeless man who sold pilfered copies of the morning Post on Booth's block was used to people's rudeness—he was used to being ignored, and to sometimes having insults shouted at him. He wasn't, however, used to being almost tackled by the enormous guy who lived in the apartment over the liquor store.

"Easy, mister!" he hollered, barely keeping his balance as the man grabbed his arm to steady them both.

"Sorry about that. I'm in a hurry-" he panted breathlessly, shoving a fiver into the guy's hand as apology. "Thanks for the paper!"

Booth scanned the newspaper nervously as he continued towards his truck. The retraction promised by Agent Andus was indeed present on Page One, above-the-fold just as Hannah's initial story had been. And oh, oh man, was it brutal. Booth grinned to himself, mentally high-fiving the creepy CIA agent for his help.

_The Central Intelligence Agency has demanded an immediate retraction of all information included in reporter Hannah Burley's article printed in yesterday's edition entitled 'Dr. Temperance Brennan: CIA Spook?'. According to CIA Agent Richard Andus, the agency has never had a professional relationship with Dr. Brennan or any involvement in her activities. _

_In addition, several assertions regarding Dr. Brennan's personal history were credited to an anonymous source, who has not been identified. The story included many factual inaccuracies and erroneous assertions. This article did not adhere to the Post's standard of journalistic integrity and accuracy. Disciplinary action will be taken against the reporter and editors responsible. _

_The Washington Post sincerely regrets any personal or professional harm caused to Dr. Brennan and formally apologizes for the unacceptable oversight that allowed such hurtful and fallacious claims to be printed by this organization. _

Relieved, Booth actually hopped into his truck, flinging the paper into the passenger seat with a happy flourish. Truthfully, he felt a pang of regret knowing that Hannah would face disciplinary action. He wandered what that even meant. Was it just for show, or could she actually be fired for this?

He knew that, in time, his temper would cool down and he'd have time to reflect on the end of their relationship. And time to recognize that he could have done better. After all, Hannah had meant a lot to him; she'd been an important part of him keeping his sanity while overseas. But he'd been unable to cork the overwhelming rage that her actions had caused, and realistically, it was a small blessing that the only thing he'd broken was a flower vase. Messing with Bones, like messing with Parker, was so totally unacceptable that it unleashed some sort of beast inside him. Chuckling to himself as he drove, he pictured the Hulk and wondered if Bones would understand the reference.

Of course, he realized as his relief faded, they didn't exactly have the kind of relationship right now that supported random talks about comic book characters. They didn't have the kind of relationship right now that supported talking about much of anything. His throat tightened again as he realized that the retraction he'd managed was only the smallest part of righting the wrongs he'd committed; dealing with the damage to Bones' professional credibility was so much easier than repairing the hole he'd carelessly blasted in her trust for him, and in a larger sense, in her personal confidence after having such humiliating revelations typed out for the world to read.

He needed to find a way to explain how seriously he wanted to earn her trust again. Simple apologies and lame groveling weren't going to suffice. He needed some sort of... gesture. And he had no idea what it might be.

Glancing at the paper in the passenger seat, he fervently wished he could print some sort of retraction on the last five months.

Xoxoxo xox xxoxoo xooo oox xox oxox oox oxoxox xoxox xooox x oxx

Brennan carefully sealed the ends of a yard of bubble wrap, bundling its bulk around a Seti-dynasty canopic jar. Testing its weight lightly in her hands, she caught her mind wandering again. Last night's slumber hadn't been quite the curative she was hoping for. Rather than enjoying a handful of solid REM cycles, she'd tossed herself across her bed all night, plagued by unsettling, vague nightmares that disappeared from her mind like tendrils of smoke as soon as she gained consciousness.

There had been something happening, or about to happen, that she wanted very much to stop. There had been a sense of foreboding, an inexact terror that seemed to worsen with each repetitive surrender to sleep. After waking for the fourth time, she gave up, shrugging her nightmares into the shower with her as if she could scour them off her back.

And so Brennan arrived at work earlier than usual, relishing the soothing sights and smells of the laboratory, purposefully appreciating them because she knew they would soon pass into memory. She closed herself in her office and set to the work of preparing her personal items for transportation.

Usually, packing had brought her a sense of calm. It meant that the worst part was over; the news that she would be moved to another foster family had already been delivered. The packing was the work that helped to distract from the sadness. She'd always been grateful for cardboard boxes, even trash bags, packing tape, anything to hold in her hands and train her eyes on so that she wouldn't have to look up at the guilty faces she would be leaving behind.

And today was no different. Apparently, news of her impending resignation had flowed through the lab. And as the early morning hours gave way to the normal workday, interns and administrators alike seemed to be creating excuses to walk past her office, attempting to act casual while their eyes scanned her office nosily.

No official announcement had been made; Cam hadn't arrived yet to receive the formally-worded letter of resignation that Brennan had prepared. Cam's absence was unusual, and Brennan wondered if she was avoiding the inevitable bad news that the day must bring. But the slowly multiplying litter of boxes within Brennan's office told the tale officially enough; the lauded forensic anthropologist was leaving.

Their footfalls outside her office embarrassed her for some reason. So she kept her head down, kept her hands busy. Bubble wrap the breakable items, seal with tape, add to boxes, fill in with packing paper, seal, tape, label. Repeat.

It was this scene that Booth walked in on when he arrived to take Brennan to lunch. The pile of cardboard boxes and half-empty shelves almost stopped his heart. Books leaned at dejected angles. The dusty outlines of recently-removed artifacts revealed themselves in harsh candor under the glare of the halogen lights. Her office was already half packed up, half of her presence gone from the space.

Enough for him to get a glance at the emptiness it would harbor if she left—the sheer lack of specialness to the space once deprived of her belongings. It suddenly seemed possible that he could walk in here one day and find her imprint removed entirely, as if she had never been here. The idea left him feeling lost.

"Bones—what—"

She paused in her progress, kneeling on the carpet with boxes surrounding her like a hen with her chicks. "Hello."

He sounded breathless. "Why are you—?"

Brennan shrugged sadly, swiping a sealed box with a line of packing tape before ripping it a vicious end. "It seemed prudent to start gathering my things."

"You're leaving?" he asked bleakly.

"Well, it seems very likely."

"But... the retraction? Did you read the paper this morning?" he asked, suddenly hopeful.

"I did. Someone shoved it under my door—most likely Angela."

"And...?"

She shrugged again. "And... And I don't know, Booth. I haven't heard anything from Cam yet about whether or not it changes anything. I believe it's likely that the damage has already been done. Bad rumors stick, is the saying, I believe."

"But, after this retraction, they can't possibly make you leave. I mean," he stammered, "you could... you could sue them for wrongful termination!"

"They're not firing me, Booth. They're asking me to leave, which is different. And I... find that, perhaps this has been an unexpected opportunity... a blessing in disguise."

"You don't believe in blessings," he flailed.

"Figuratively."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched as she leaned over the box, swiping its equator with another line of tape. She was packing herself out of his life as he watched. Soon this office would be emptied of her things and his life would be emptied of his Bones. He could feel the panic sweat pearling the back of his neck.

"Where are you going?"

"I've secured a position at the forensics lab at Stanford University. And positions for Angela and Hodgins as well," she added quietly.

"So they want to go with you, huh?"

"To stick it to the man, yes. And Angela is very loyal. And she wants a lemon tree," Brennan offered awkwardly.

"California."

"Yes."

Booth had to turn away. He studied the speckle of texture on the walls as if it could form meaning. This wasn't happening. This wasn't possible. Their partnership couldn't possibly unravel in two days time. It couldn't.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you," he whispered in the direction of the floor, too cowardly to turn around. "The... how Hannah knew about," he cringed, "about you being abused. We had talked weeks ago. She always wanted to talk about you, you know? I could tell she was worried about... about who you were to me. She had so many questions."

He took a deep breath and turned to face her, but couldn't peel his eyes from his shoes. "I just wanted to be normal, you know? A normal guy who could tell his normal girlfriend about the important things in his life. Critical things really. The necessary things. I wanted to make her understand that you and I were non-negotiable. I thought she might start asking that I spend less time with you and-"he shook his head against the stinging behind his eyelids, "and I was already spending practically _no _time with you as it was. She wanted to know why you didn't date and I..."

His eyes burned hot with shame but he forced himself to look at her. "I told her about your history, and how it made it difficult for you to trust people." He held his hands up defensively, "Not everything... I didn't say much, you know? Just... God, I said _enough. _I said that thing about your...scars... just hoping it would make her understand and she'd drop it. I never thought..."

"You think I don't date because of my _abuse?" _she asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

"I—maybe?"

She laughed bitterly and shook her head, shifting the boxes around her to reach a new one. "Not the reason, Booth."

"Okay, I'm sorry then, for that... too. It doesn't matter what I think. Just, I understand that trusting people might be hard for you, okay?"

Her eyes hit him like blue lasers. "I trusted _you_."

"I know."

"You told me you'd never betray me."

"God, Bones, I remember. I know. I made a mistake. I trusted the wrong person and I was stupid and I'm sorry. _I'm so sorry._"

Her eyes held his for a moment, magnetic. And then she returned to the task in front of her, interlacing the flaps on a box of books. She was finding it difficult to sit still and endure the pain in his voice. This was the problem with overly emotional people like Booth, or Angela: sure, it was pleasant to feel their joy but it meant that you also sometimes felt their pain. And it crashed over you like a tsunami and suffocated you. Brennan felt trapped in it, sitting on the floor, drowning under Booth's sorrow. She was still angry at him, but the pleading sound in his voice...

She really didn't want to end their years of partnership like this. She wanted an amicable goodbye. So she met his wide, frozen eyes and gestured towards the couch, offering him a seat. He moved slowly, sat down formally, fidgeted with his big hands like he didn't know where to put them.

Brennan found herself frowning. "What I read in the retraction notice—I realize it's absurd, but I... I hope that Hannah doesn't face an undue punishment for the article."

"What?" he asked dumbly.

She shot him a chastising look. "There was a small element of truth to it after all. And she doesn't owe me any personal or professional courtesy, really. I know that she was doing her job. I can appreciate her career ambition."

"How can you say that? How can you be packing up your own office and say that?" he asked, thunderstruck.

"Maybe it's for the best, Booth. I'm actually excited about this new opportunity at Stanford—at first I wasn't, of course. I was... hurt that the Jeffersonian no longer desired my expertise. But maybe this will all work out. And Hannah won't have to worry about my lack of dating and its implications..."

"No, she won't," he spat.

Brennan's face showed her confusion.

"We broke up. I told her to leave. I couldn't stand having her in my home for another second."

She was shocked. It was completely unexpected and at one time, she realized, it might have made a selfish part of her so very glad. But now, she felt responsible for even more of her partner's unhappiness.

"Booth, no," she whispered. "You shouldn't have done that. You didn't have to-"

"Yes I did!" He looked down at her as if she had lost her mind. "After what she did to you, Bones, I refuse to listen to you spouting off even one more word of sympathy! You are my best friend! And what she did to you, she did to _me._ She deserved every bit of anger I threw at her. More than!"

"You threw anger at her?" Brennan inquired innocently. "What did you throw, Booth?"

"What? Not literally, Bones. Well, maybe a little—the vase, I guess."

"You threw the vase at her?"

"No—not _at _her, Bones, come on!"

"I'm sorry, Booth, but I don't understand. It seems hasty and unnecessary for you to sever your relationship over this. After all, I'll be leaving and eventually you'll likely reconsider your actions."

His frustration ebbed as he looked at his partner, her eyes widened with genuine puzzlement. And that, he understood. It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to treat her like the most important person in his life. A long time since she'd seen the proof of that in his words, his behavior. The scientist in her was sorting through the facts and finding no rational conclusions. It was no wonder that Bones didn't understand the truth of his relationship with Hannah. After all, he himself had only come to understand it within the past day.

"Bones. Listen. I lost my temper, so yes, I'll probably feel bad about the way I broke it off with her later. But nothing more. It was right. I was right. I feel better finding out now rather than later, believe me. She's not a person I can trust. So I'm glad she's gone. If it had just been me she betrayed, maybe we could've worked on it somehow. But... Bones, you've gotta believe... I can't sit by and just watch someone hurt you like that."

He saw the shine of trapped tears in his partner's eyes and he wanted more than anything to hold her. But he knew he didn't have that right; he had, in fact, surrendered it long before Hannah set type to paper. He had surrendered it in Afghanistan, under the ungodly day's sun and frigid night's darkness, when he allowed himself to douse his heartache with a stranger. So cheap and desperate. He'd cheated on Bones, on himself, on Hannah.

"I don't want anyone to ever hurt you like that again. Even though... I realize that lately, I've been the one hurting you. Every day, you said," he whispered. "I'm sorry for that most of all."

**AN: Sorry to break in the middle of a conversation but I'm tired and going to bed now—lol. I'm hoping to finish their talk tomorrow...** **Cheers!**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Helloooooo! *waving!* Hope you're still sticking with this story... I'll get to the romance soon, believe it or not! Thank you for reading!**

"I've been doing a lot of thinking, Bones. A lot, a lot. And sort of, quickly, you know? So I apologize if I'm not making much sense here. The thing is, Hannah's story brought a lot of things to light."

"Yes," she replied sardonically. "Details of my personal history."

"I," he stammered, swallowing his impatience. She had a right to snap at him, after all, and he would just have to smile, take it, and ask if she wanted to dish up more. _Yes, ma'am. _"I meant, more than that. The way everyone reacted... Cam, Angela, Hodgins, hell, the whole damn squint assortment that's been shooting me dirty looks each time I come in here... I've had to ask myself why people that I've worked with for years—people who _know _me—could just assume the worst of me like that. No one was giving me a chance to explain myself. They all just thought that I would sell you out," he shook his head wonderingly.

"Why would they think that?" he continued. "It really shook me. People whose trust I thought I'd earned long ago, just thinking the worst of me like that. And I realized that I must have lost their trust even before all this went down. At least when it came to you. They stopped trusting me to take care of you. They actually believed that I would conspire with Hannah to print that... stuff...about my own partner."

Brennan sat on the edge of her seat, leaning unconsciously towards him as if she could get herself closer to the truth of his words. A concentration dimple marred her forehead as she waited for him to continue. She too had been surprised by her team's instant judgment of Booth. In a way, she'd felt flattered and protected by how quickly they'd rallied to her side of the argument.

"I had to ask myself what they'd been seeing these past few months." He studied her face intently, knowing the next part would be the hardest on both of them.

"They saw a man who had stood by you for six years suddenly abandon you. They saw a friendship fading. They saw me acting like I didn't want to be a part of your life anymore, because I had someone better."

She gasped, shocked at how much it hurt to hear him admit all her fears. _Someone better. _

"Wait, Bones, no—I'm not saying that's the truth, I'm saying that's what they all _saw_. Because they don't know better. They don't know what happened between us or how much it wrecked me when you turned me down or how stupidly I was just trying to hold our partnership together. I'm saying I understand how they could all judge me like that. Because they don't know the truth."

Even if she'd set a recorder in front of him, like in the interrogation room, and reviewed his type-written statement over and over, she probably still wouldn't understand what he was trying to say. It was so frustrating, so confusing. Sometimes, it was like the man spoke in cliches. His communication often lacked clarity. This was one of those times she found her agile mind lurching awkwardly to understand him.

"So what's the truth, then, Booth?"

"So simple, Bones," he said bleakly. "I took the biggest risk of my life and lost. It hurt my pride. I'm so ashamed to admit this, but I was mad at you. Mad at me. Mad at the world because I couldn't have the woman I loved. _All _my decisions since then, Bones, have been made with... terrible judgment."

Brennan made no move to correct him, even though she had to bite back an almost instinctual urge to disagree. Even now, she didn't like anyone abusing Booth's character, even if he himself was the one doing the disparaging. But in truth, she agreed with what he was saying.

"Just... pride and vanity. You didn't want me? Well, I could find a woman who did. Stupid, stupid pride. And I'm so sorry. And I realize too, that it's kind of perfect that the end of my relationship with Hannah had so much to do with you because _every _part of my relationship with Hannah had to do with you. The way it started? Because I was angry at you, Bones. The way it kept going when she came to DC? Because maybe I wanted you to be jealous, to see what you were missing. I was never really having a relationship with Hannah, I was having a relationship with a voodoo doll version of you—trying to hurt you! And I didn't see it in time- I didn't realize what I was doing. God, I'm so sorry. I haven't been a good friend to you."

He shook his head morosely. "I know that it's more than just this article. I know that I've messed up in a much bigger way."

Brennan stood and moved to her desk, swiping a tissue to dab discretely at her traitorously leaking eyes. She needed to put some physical space between them. It was difficult to resist the pain in his voice. No matter how badly he had treated her, she still wanted his friendship. Because her friendship had been given to him long ago in a way that she didn't even know how to undo.

She wanted her anger back. It was a safer emotion. More partnerly to yell than cry. When she was angry at him the previous day, Booth had seemed grateful to leave her office quickly. But today, he was planted firmly on the couch, watching her too closely, his sharp eyes tracing each tense movement of her body.

He was too close. She felt crowded, too _gazed-upon_.

"Stop studying me," she grumbled.

"I like to look at you," he whispered candidly, too drained to censor himself.

And _that _did it—brought her anger rushing ruthlessly back, like a flash flood through a canyon, too much emotion squeezed into too narrow a space.

"Why do you say things like that?" she hissed. "Why do you-" she couldn't finish her thought, couldn't find words to characterize her bitterness.

"Hannah had a right to be jealous," he whispered, his face pale with tension. "All those reassurances she really wanted, every time she started talking about you, I couldn't give them. Why you're a non-negotiable part of my life? I couldn't tell her the real reason. I told her about your abuse and that was cowardly, and wrong, and unforgivable. But I think... I think I did it because I couldn't tell her the real reason. That I've never stopped-"

"No!" she shouted. "One minute you're angry at me and Hannah's a voodoo doll. I'm still trying to understand _that _metaphor, and now you're saying... other things, and... you're saying too much, and you should stop."

He stood, advancing towards her slowly, his face still drawn tight as if he was scared. "I won't stop, Bones. I'm done lying, hiding, being a coward. I've ruined everything because I couldn't be honest. Honest, and say that I was mad at you. Honest, and say that I can't make myself stop loving you."

Brennan pushed her hands out to stop the rapidly encroaching wall of his broad chest. "You don't get to say these things! I've barely talked to you for five months and you don't just get to come into my office and make melodramatic speeches again just because you're currently without a girlfriend!"

He gripped her arms, his fingers rigidly locked but strangely gentle. "Breaking up with Hannah-"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HANNAH ANYMORE!" she shouted, loud enough to make him flinch.

"Neither do I," he swore, pulling her roughly into a hug that she _knew _she should resist but was too tired to decipher how.

Xoxo oxxooox oxox xoxox xoxoxoox oxox xoxooxo xoxox ox o

Cam sat back in her chair, forcing her lumbar muscles to unbunch. Wincing, she reached behind her to run her knuckles across the ache. She'd been locked in her office for hours, crouched over the phone. The stress of her morning's work had settled into her back, growing like a gleeful parasite.

She had an entire file spread before on her desk, filled with notes sprawled on cocktail napkins, receipts, anything that had been handy the first time she'd met each member of the Board. They were simple observations, appended to each Board member's name, but they helped her feign remembering people that she knew would all blend together in her mind. _Fat guy, balding, has a summer house in the Hamptons, likes salt water fishing, wife makes a mean cheesecake. Retired ornithologist, big admirer of Reagan, Republican donor, tall with a big nose, possibly gay. Noticed my Marchesa dress, mother of three, tennis player. _It was an old cop's habit to take notes after meeting suspects, but it had served her well in her career.

And it had served her well this morning, as she'd dutifully called each Board member, one after the other, to make a personal plea for Dr. Brennan's continued career at the Jeffersonian. She'd stressed the irreplaceable skillset of her entire team, had recounted their scientific contributions and legal triumphs in between polite inquiries about each Board member's children, hobbies, published articles. She'd vouched for her team's ongoing success, and pointedly quoted pieces of the Post's morning retraction. She'd gone for their guilt by explaining how professionally hurtful their resignation requests had been to Dr. Brennan. She'd pointed out that the Jeffersonian's best scientist deserved their loyalty.

And one by one, they had acquiesced.

She'd never felt her role as an administrator more keenly than that morning, playing each person on the phone with a diligence that she'd much rather turn towards an autopsy. But she was satisfied. Sore and stressed, but satisfied.

Smiling, she walked to Dr. Brennan's office to deliver the good news, feeling the pressure of the last few days finally starting to melt.

As she knocked, she saw Booth and Brennan embracing through the glass. It felt awkward to interrupt, but her news was too good to keep to herself.

"Excuse me, guys? I'm sorry to interrupt," she spoke softly, leaning into Brennan's office. "I just wanted to tell you that the Board unanimously rescinds their request for your resignation, and wishes for nothing more than you to continue working here at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan. And between you and me," Cam smiled brilliantly, "they all feel like total shits for the way they treated you."

Booth's laughed from pure relief, distracting him from the way that Brennan wriggled out of his arms.

"Thank you, Cam."

"Don't mention it, Dr. Brennan," she replied, closing the door gently as she left.

"Bones!" Booth clapped his hands together briskly. "This is great news! Right? Look, I can help you unpack all this junk..." he smiled, pulling a bubble-wrap-obscured lump from the nearest box.

"Booth, please, I need some time," she asked quietly.

He looked at her more closely, stunned to notice her contemplative expression. She looked decidedly unhappy. It made his pulse trip in his throat.

"What do you mean, Bones?"

"I have a lot to think about. And I can't think with you here."

He swallowed nervously, all of the joy from Cam's announcement crystallizing into dread. "What," he choked, "what do you have to think about?"

She sniffed delicately, swiping the drying tear tracks on her cheeks. "A lot, I suppose."

Booth looked down at the wrapped-up artifact in his hand disbelievingly. "Are you still thinking about leaving?" he managed.

It was difficult to look him in the eyes and lie, so Brennan chose to look him in the eyes and say nothing.

The silence stretched between them like a disease.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Boy, I've never been this slow writing a story. I apologize for that. It's been difficult finding free time lately (happy holidays!) but I'm going to hope to get through a handful more chapters soon and finish this story out. Their reconciliation is not going to be tooooo fast, though. Most of you felt that Booth needs to do some more suffering, and I live to serve. ; )**

**Hopefully a few of you have gotten some review replies and to those I haven't gotten to yet, my sincere thanks for dropping me your thoughts.**

Booth drifted through the front door of his apartment like a zombie. To say that the last few days had been draining was a gross understatement. It had been more like an emotional obstacle course—just when he thought the path ahead was clear, some type of enemy had popped out as if on tension-loaded springs.

Bones was still considering leaving. And part of him felt like she already had.

She had asked him for a few days. So he hadn't stopped by, hadn't called. The fact that a few days without any contact between them had actually been normal for the last several months still rattled him. All the things he hadn't noticed then seemed to be haunting him now. How blind he'd been at the way their 'normal' had changed as soon as they got back. How much he missed being in her closest circle. How much he'd taken their friendship for granted as he'd left it to wither untended.

By now, she probably had her office completely packed up. She probably had her mail set to reroute somewhere, probably had given away her houseplants and canceled the utilities at her apartment. She wasn't one to leave irresponsibly, without tying up loose ends.

He wondered if she considered him a loose end. He fully expected that she would appear at his door any day now, with a clinical little speech about having learned a lot from their partnership. Maybe she would offer to shake his hand before she left. Maybe she would pat his shoulder awkwardly the way he'd done for Zack so long ago. Would she tell him to take care, or simply say goodbye? Would she promise to call every now and then?

He wasn't ready to watch her walk out of his life. He wasn't sure what it would do to him to lose her so finally. He couldn't even imagine it, not really. His world was changing so quickly he had trouble keeping up. It was amazing how his entire being seemed balanced on a dangerous precipice, and yet so many things were so staggeringly the same.

He'd sat through a department meeting that morning, kept a poker face, answered all the questions correctly. Parker had called him in the afternoon, excited about a kickball game at recess that had ended with a classmates 'awesome' broken nose. He'd stopped for dinner on his way home from work, managed to eat half of it before the ever-present nausea swelled inside his gut. To outward appearances, a very normal day.

Even his apartment looked the same, on the surface. Only the bedroom appeared to have been gently ransacked from Hannah's hasty packing. He'd been too distracted to tidy up. And it seemed appropriate, he thought, kicking the bottom drawer of his dresser shut with his toe—the only room of his life that had really been touched by Hannah's presence was the bedroom.

Sighing, he leaned down to gather the bedclothes that he'd peeled off the night she left. He couldn't sleep in them, not with the smell of her shampoo still hovering around the pillows. Might as well do the laundry tonight and wash it away. It was good that she was gone. It was right. Still, he wondered where she was and what she was thinking. As with any bad breakup, it was difficult to accept that someone you had once cared about was somewhere in the world thinking badly of you. He wasn't the kind of man used to letting others down, but he knew that Hannah must surely feel that way about him. And he hated that, even though he knew he'd done the right thing. Well, he'd done the right thing, but he hadn't done it in the right way.

A stray hair tie shook out onto the floor from one of the pillowcases. He reached down to examine it, twirling it idly in his fingers. It all seemed so clear now that it was too late to matter. He'd wanted love so badly he'd given up the hope and patience that Gordon Gordon had counseled. He'd tried to muscle and force his way to loving another woman but it didn't work like that. Apparently.

He flopped onto the bed wearily, hugging his own pillow to his chest. He was losing his best friend and there wasn't anything he could think to do to stop her. Maybe if he just had a... a good cry... maybe that would get rid of some stress. A good manly cry. Nothing to be ashamed of.

He clenched the pillow more tightly to his body and sniffled hesitantly, waiting for the tears to start. He sniffed again and waited.

He looked around his room as if to double-check that he had total privacy.

He scrunched his face up and took a few deep breaths and waited some more.

This was ridiculous.

He flung the pillow to the floor and vaulted to his feet, his eyes stone-dry and his stress undiminished. Crying sure as hell wasn't going to happen. He was a man of action, and it was well past time to remember that. Booth was done sitting around and wallowing and waiting for someone else to decide his fate. His mistake the first time was that he didn't fight for them.

This time, he would.

Xoxoxox xox xox xoxoo xooo ooox ox oo xxoxo xoxox

"Maybe we should flip a coin," Angela sighed dramatically, frustrated with Brennan's continuing indecision as their evening together crawled its way into its fifth hour.

"Maybe," Brennan agreed seriously. "Booth would likely approve of a method that embraces the concept of fate, which he strongly believes in." She frowned at the kernel of popcorn in her hand, inspecting its miniscule terrain as if it was an artifact. "Of course, by that measure, I should considering praying for a sign from God, since Booth believes strongly in that as well."

Angela rolled her eyes and shoved a generous handful of popcorn into her mouth to keep from making a snarky comment.

"Booth believes a lot of things," Brennan continued quietly, thinking out loud.

"Bwen!" Angela hollered, her mouth still half-full. "I can't take this anymore. We're supposed to be deciding whether you should quit your job and move to the other side of the country for goodness sake! And whether Hodgins and I will end up doing the same! But you're not even focusing on the right things. Do you know how many times you've mentioned Booth tonight?"

Brennan blinked at her, owlishly blank. "Do you?"

"I didn't _count,_ Bren, though maybe I should have. You get the point."

She shook her head slowly, not entirely sure that she did get Angela's point.

Angela set their snacks down on the coffee table with a little too much percussion and turned to face her friend, now completely exasperated. "Let's just focus on the job for a second, okay?"

Following her friend's lead, Brennan set her lone piece of popcorn on the table and turned formally to perform the requisite focusing.

"Is this a good career move for you? Will this increase your pay, prestige, or give you better opportunities than you have in your current job?" Angela asked with faux patience.

After only a short pause, Brennan answered in order: "No, not applicable, and unlikely."

"Okay. The Palo Alto job was a good job compared to, well, the no-job that you thought you had at the time you sought the offer. But is it really, objectively, a good job compared to your job at the Jeffersonian? Would it be a step up?"

Brennan slouched suddenly, as she understood the point that Angela was making. "No. At best it could be considered a lateral move."

They sat together for an extended moment of quiet, as each woman reconfigured her vision of the future.

"So why are you still considering it?" Angela asked sadly.

Brennan knew what Angela was driving at but refused the bait. She had many reasons for considering this move, and they were valid, even if the job itself could be considered merely adequate. "We talked about loyalty, Angela, do you remember? I've given years of my life to the Jeffersonian, and they asked for my resignation as if it was nothing."

"I know sweetie, and I can see how that would hurt your feelings. I get it, I do. But spite isn't a good reason to make such a big decision. Have you ever heard the phrase _cutting your nose off to spite your face?_"

Brennan's face clearly portrayed her disgust.

"I guess not," Angela sighed. "Can we just agree that making this move wouldn't solely be about the job?"

After hesitating for an uncomfortable amount of time, Brennan conceded the point, irked that once again Angela had swooped in and shoved her through her own personal emotional maze. Yes, the help was welcome, but even the most well-intentioned shoving could leave a bruise.

"You should be a therapist," Brennan grumbled.

Angela beamed a wide smile. "Maybe I could put our buddy Sweets out of business."

Brennan couldn't help but smile back, even though the gesture slipped from the corner of her mouth quickly. "The thing about the nose, and the spite? You're saying that applies to my situation with Booth too, aren't you?"

Angela smiled sadly at her friend, patting her hand in silent encouragement.

"So you're suggesting that giving up my partnership with Booth just because he has... hurt my feelings... is precipitous."

"Sweetie, I'm all for making big changes in life, but you need to make them for the right reason. Trust me. I've run from a good thing once or twice and the regret is unbearable."

It was a lot to accept, that Brennan's shining new opportunity looked like it would just evaporate, and that everything at the Jeffersonian would return to normal. As if this had never happened. She had to admit that part of her, which Angela had aptly labeled 'spite', couldn't handle the fact that things would go back to normal because that meant that Booth would be completely unpunished for his betrayal.

But even that was a disturbing thought. Who wanted to punish their best friend? Maybe he really wasn't her best friend anymore—maybe those months of neglect had done irreparable damage. If she truly felt friendship for Booth, would she genuinely want him to suffer?

It was a question that she would need some time to ponder, but it seemed that for now, the day's most important question had been answered: she would stay at the Jeffersonian.

As if able to read minds, Angela seemed to realize that Brennan had come to that conclusion and snorted. "Good thing Cam never found out you were still considering it. She would have stabbed you with a stiletto."

xooox xxoo oox xoxoox oooxo oxoxoo xxoxoox ooxoxoo xxxoxox xxox ooox

Angela was gone only moments before Brennan heard a knock at her door. Smiling, she wondered what last pearl of wisdom her friend had forgotten to gift her with.

"Ange," she laughed, opening the door. The person on the other side was _very _much not Angela. Brennan's eyes, which had aimed to find the other woman's eyes, found themselves staring at a very familiar, lean throat, shadowed with late evening beard. The not-Angela's shoulders nearly filled the door frame, blocking her view of the hallway.

The handsome throat swallowed and Brennan's eyes traveled slowly up the cords of his neck, past his squared chin, tripped over his tender-looking lips, and rose nervously to meet his warm brown eyes.

"Bones," he said quietly, oddly on-edge from her leisurely perusal. "Can I come in? I know you said you wanted some time, but we need to talk."

Deciding that allowing him inside would give her more time to collect her thoughts than forcing her to reply immediately, she stood aside and allowed him to enter, closing the door behind him.

At a subtle quirk of his eyebrow, she snapped the deadbolt in place with a defiant expression. Apparently not everything in their relationship had changed.

"Do you want to take your coat off?" she asked.

As if he hadn't even heard her, he strode into the middle of the room, flexing his fists open and closed as if he was trying to restore bloodflow to numbed extremities.

"I'm going with you," he announced, whirling to pin her in place with a level gaze.

"What?"

"To California. I'm going with you. If it's okay for Angela and Hodgins, then I get to go too."

Several beats of silence passed between them before Brennan could formulate a response.

"You can't."

"Why?" he challenged, fully expecting her to disagree.

"You—your job is here. You don't work at the lab. I can't get a job for you too, Booth," she exclaimed in disbelief.

"What, they don't have cops in California? You think I couldn't get a job with a police department?" he scoffed, more than a little arrogant.

"I—no, what?" she sputtered.

"Listen, just hear me out. I've been spending the last few days trying to come up with some sort of... big gesture to make you understand how much I value our partnership. I can't just keep apologizing because you're all about proof. And I'm here to give you proof. I'm going with you."

"Just, stop a minute, Booth. You need to think about this, and I—I'm starting to feel like that biblical character with the fictional ark and—and you can't all just hop on board and, and I don't want the responsibility of this-"

"Bones," he pointed a finger at her, "leave the Bible out of it."

"This is insane. You're acting crazy," she leveled at him.

"No, Bones, I'm doing the right thing. Finally."

"What about Parker?"

He blanched considerably, now that she'd hit him with the strongest argument she could. "I know. It's going to be tough. But I can fly out every three weeks, and I only see him every second weekend now, so it's not that different. I can make it work. It's going to suck, but I can make it work."

"Well I don't want you to! I won't be responsible for separating Parker even further from his father."

"I don't want you to feel responsible," he countered quietly, his eyes imploring her. "This is my choice. I don't have a partner if you leave, Bones. I don't have a best friend. So here I am," he threw his arms wide, "making the gesture. I'm _committing_ to this partnership, right now, all in. Even if you're not ready to do the same—which would be my fault right now, I know—I'm committing, Bones. And there's nothing you can say about it."

On that count, at least, Booth seemed to be right. Because all Brennan could do was stare at him in disbelief.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Excuse du jour: the show's been killing my writing vibe so thoroughly lately it's crazy. Only after marinating with last week's episode for a few days did I start to feel an inkling of hope that made me feel like I could continue this story. I'm really wishing I'd stayed totally out of the current plotline sandbox. It's... ugh. But after last week's episode (one of the best-written eps in the whole run, I feel) I'm cautiously optimistic. It felt like the groan of a giant ship slowly turning away from its course. Whew! : )**

It was almost like a stare-off. Booth and Brennan stood motionless, their eyes locked on each other in what had quickly become a contest of wills.

His last words—"_I'm committing, Bones. And there's nothing you can say about it—" _hung mulishly in the air between them.

Booth's head was lowered as he stared at her from under a stern brow that suffered no disagreement. Brennan held her chin up haughtily, unimpressed with his masculine posturing. They might have stayed like that for hours, for days or years, still as wax figures, if Booth hadn't come to the conclusion that it wasn't a contest he could win. There was no way he could out-stubborn his partner. And now wasn't the time for him to be trying her patience with a childish battle.

So he blinked, holding up his hands in surrender. "The last thing I want to do is make you angry here, Bones," he admitted quietly. "But I mean it. I'm going with you."

"What if I don't want you to?" she lashed out.

The barb hit home, transforming his expression into the regret of a little boy. "I know... I know that lately I haven't been the type of friend you would want..." he swallowed, "...that you'd want to take with you. I..."

The tears that hadn't gathered before seemed to mutinously converge in his eyes at that moment, as the extent of her hurt became obvious. He hadn't been able to summon tears for his own pair earlier, but they seemed to rush in now that he was face to face with hers.

He'd thought her rejection before was the lowest moment in his life, but he knew now that her rejecting his friendship somehow hurt even worse than rejecting his romantic overtures.

"I'm not proud of myself, Bones," he whispered. "And I want to explain... as much as I can. But I need you to hear me out. Our partnership deserves at least that much."

She chose a seat at the end of the couch, and he sat carefully at the other end, leaving a space in between where the awkwardness parked itself, almost as solid as a third body in the room.

"I lost my way," he admitted. "I told you that you were _the one._ And then I acted like that sort of certainty was something I could just move beyond. In a way, I thought maybe you wanted me to, like it was too much pressure to always be... mooning around hoping for more. Like it would eventually make you uncomfortable. But you can't just profess that sort of... deep devotion, that once-in-a-lifetime connection, and try to just walk away. But even more than that, I should never have taken your friendship for granted. And I should _never _have given away your secrets."

He drew a shaky breath and watched her calm, impassive face. "I've always tried to be a man you could trust. Knowing that... that I'm not... I've disappointed myself as much as I've disappointed you."

"Booth," she sighed. "I don't need you to self-flagellate like this. I never asked for your... romantic loyalty..." she struggled to find the words.

"That's the thing, Bones. You shouldn't have had to ask for it. It should have just, simply, been yours."

The quiet hush of traffic passing beneath her window hummed around them as they both sat, looking at their hands, looking for a signpost from the other. Booth figured it was enough for now that she hadn't kicked him out, that she was listening.

"I want to go to California with you," he repeated. When she opened her mouth to speak, he broke her off. "No—I know, you think it's crazy. But it feels right, Bones. If I'm actually lucky enough to get a second chance here, to try and fix our partnership, _I want to try._"

"You should know, Booth, that California isn't... I mean, in weighing the pros and cons of the two positions, I concluded that..."

"Whatever you decide, Bones, I'm with you. Don't doubt it for a second," he swore.

They'd never excelled at such open communication—everything with them had always been layered, husked in careful wording that only hinted at the depth beneath the surface. It was excruciating, somehow, to sit next to the person who knew you better than anyone else in the world and realize that you may be endeavoring on your first genuinely honest exchange. No _somedays,_ or _eventuallys_, just here. Now. With his partner packing her life away from him, Booth had nothing left to lose.

So he steeled himself and started what he had come to say.

"It's not just our work partnership that I want to commit to, Bones. Or even our friendship," he whispered. "I know you probably don't want to hear this, but this is what I need to say to you..."

Booth glanced at her troubled expression just once before shaking his head in trepidation and forcing himself to continue. It was now or never.

"If you're not my girlfriend, I don't have a girlfriend," he said quietly.

"What?"

"This whole situation was caused by the fact that I thought I could have the woman I've always wanted in my life, and also have someone more immediate on the side. You can't split your priorities like that, Bones. You can't try to love two people at once. It makes fucked-up situations like this whole newspaper thing happen. And I'm not willing to risk that again."

She stared at him, for the second time that night completely without speech.

"So," he swallowed. "I'm making this commitment, right now, even if you can't. Even if you never can. I can't control whether you accept me or not, but I _can _make sure that you know every day that I'm yours if you want me. That you come first, and that there's nobody else for me."

"Booth!" she finally interrupted, incredulous, "You can't ignore your sexual or romantic needs just out of deference to me!"

"Why not?" he asked calmly, one eyebrow cocked. "I did it for _years_. And it worked. So I'm just going to go back to that. And to hope, and patience."

"But-"she sputtered angrily. "This is absurd, Booth, you can't do this! You can't make me responsible for... for where you live, where you work, and how you date all in one conversation! You can't just give up all control over your own life like that! I don't want this pressure!"

"It's not about pressure, Bones. It's about facing my own reality, and being honest with you about what that is. This is what I should have said last year, in front of the Hoover, before Afghanistan. I shouldn't have asked you to take a chance, or acted like I could ever move on. There's no moving on for me. I told you that you're the one, and I meant it. I just... lost my way. I'm going to do it right this time. I still believe in fate, Bones."

Brennan jumped off the couch like she was electrocuted, pacing away from him. Her vexation dramatically juxtaposed his calm. He looked peaceful, placid even, like he had just been to confession. She, however, felt the stirrings of a panic attack skittering inside her ribcage.

"You—you can't—you..." she started, shaking her head in denial. "People don't do this! Even irrational people like yourself—they don't _do this!_"

She was staring at him, totally gobsmacked, and Booth was almost amused to find himself on the receiving end of the stupefied expression she'd must recently bludgeoned Rick Andus with. Apparently she thought he wasn't in control of his mental faculties either. She was so adorable when her face got all twisted with indignation that it made him smile in spite of the moment.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked, horrified.

She was so beautiful, staring down at him like he had sprouted a second skull right before her eyes or declared his belief in the existence of leprechauns. She was beautiful, and she was finally talking to him without layers. Because _that, _right there, was pure unfiltered Brennan.

"Why are you just staring at me?" she demanded.

"Don't worry about it."

"I _am _worried about it, Booth! I don't even know what this means, what you're advocating..."

"Well, Bones," he replied, a thoughtful smile still in place, "it means that I'll never have another kiss if it's not from you-"

She gasped, seeing the utter seriousness on his face.

"I'll never—and this hurts, Bones—I'll never have sex again if it isn't with you. I'll never allow a woman into my home or heart if it isn't you."

"You can't promise that! You have no idea how you'll feel in the future, Booth- I would have hoped you had realized, especially in light of the last few months, how painful it can be if you make promises you're unable to keep!" she cried.

"I have learned that, Bones. I swear to God I've learned that. I promised not to betray you and look what's happening. I _understand _now, Bones. My mistake was in not being true to myself, to what I _knew, _have _always _known in my heart. I'm not making that mistake again."

"Booth, I can't let you-"

"You have no say in this, Bones. I know how I feel, and I decide how I act on that. Whether you want me is up to you, but I'm going to wait 30, 40, 50 years if I have to."

She had no idea what to say to that. It was ludicrous, completely without precedent, for someone to throw their life's happiness so totally at her mercy. It was uncomfortable, and weighty, and irrational. But he didn't look like a man who felt nearly as desperate as his actions indicated; for the first time in recent memory, he looked utterly content with his choice. And that's what it was, apparently. _His _choice.

But she didn't understand that choice, and didn't like it. It was foreign, and so totally beyond her personal experience that Brennan found herself without argument. He had boxed her into a rhetorical corner, presenting his position as if it was a pact between him and his own conscience, one in which her opinion had no bearing at all. Actually, t felt almost like...

"Are you...?" she ventured, eyes narrowed as her suspicions slowly came into focus.

"Blackmailing you," he replied with a small smile.

"Blackmailing your partner. Emotionally. Into a romantic relationship, because if I want you to be happy, I'll have to accede to your wishes," she deadpanned.

"Yes."

She paused, studying his self-satisfied countenance. "I don't like it."

"I'm fairly certain you're not supposed to. But that's how it's going to be, Bones. It's you or nobody."

If their conversation mirrored another moment early in their partnership, neither of them openly acknowledged it. Somehow their roles had reversed, and the original blackmailer was now feeling the discomfort of being subject to her partner's inconvenient determination.

Brennan flopped back down onto the couch, mentally exhausted and as frustrated as her partner was composed.

"I decided I'm not accepting the job at Stanford, by the way," she admitted begrudgingly.

Booth nodded slowly, unfazed, as if the news was neither a relief nor a disappointment. He smiled at her, and she scowled back.

"Angela's going to miss out on her lemon tree," she offered non-committally.

"You know, Bones, for someone who used to be pretty reserved in her friendships, you certainly have a whole mess of people willing to drop everything just to go with you," he observed.

Her frown deepened. "Are you... are you mocking me?"

"No," he vowed in utter earnestness. "I'm proud of you."

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, somehow tacitly agreeing not to return to the topic of his emotional blackmail. It was too much for her to fathom so quickly anyway, so she was grateful for the chance to nudge the whole issue to the side, at least for now. She knew that Booth had said his piece, and was now relaxed enough to settle into some semblance of normalcy.

"You know," he said conversationally, "in a way, it's too bad. I was starting to look forward to a fresh start in California."

When Brennan looked up, she saw such terrifying gentleness in his eyes that it humbled her. This was her partner, the one she depended on. Yes, he had hurt her. But she'd hurt him too. And the things he'd said tonight... if it was even possible that he had such an infinite amount of refound faith in their relationship, maybe she could borrow some for herself.

"Maybe we can have a fresh start anyway," she offered hesitantly.

"I'd like that."


	9. Chapter 9

Seven a.m. always felt earlier when it was announced by the humorless voice of the FBI dispatcher, alerting Booth to the appearance of a new body. Normally, it would be an unpleasant start to the day. But this wasn't a normal day, and Booth was happy to have an excuse to spend time with his partner, even under such a morose occasion.

He got ready cheerfully, threading the gel into his hair with childish enthusiasm. He paused, though, looking at the carefully coiffed shape he'd created and wondered for the first time if Bones liked his hairstyle. It was a strange question: she wasn't a woman who seemed to notice such things, or put any credence to the observation even if she did. But she had once called his hair 'crunchy', and he wondered if that was a good or bad thing. Frowning slightly, he pulled his large hand over the terrain above his scalp, smoothing the gelled peaks just a little. He knew he was acting like a teenager, but he needed every bit of ammunition he could muster in his ongoing tactical battle. He'd never really tried to look good specifically for his partner, but it couldn't hurt to start.

He pulled on a suit, carefully smoothing his white dress shirt into his waistband before fastening his belt. The Cocky belt buckle, he thought smugly, was a no-brainer. She'd called it 'Boothy', and he had a feeling that was a compliment in her mind. _Boothy, _he grinned to himself. _Yeah, baby._

For the first time in a long time, he felt confident. And that was, admittedly, odd—because all he'd managed to do yesterday was pour his heart out to his partner _again_ with very little difference from the first disastrous time he'd tried it. Though, the fact that she hadn't shut him down cold this time was promising. All she'd really done was stare at him as if he'd lost his mind, but he'd gotten used to that years ago. Nope, he was certain: things were looking up.

He flipped his poker chip jauntily and stepped out into the waiting day with a smile.

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Brennan stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, delicately prodding the paper-fragile skin under her eyes with a fingertip. There were definite gray shadows under her eyes, most likely the result of the paltry and unfulfilling sleep she'd experienced the night before.

_Stupid Booth, _she mumbled to herself, digging through her medicine cabinet for the green concealer she'd need to dab underneath her regular makeup. She'd been up most of the night thinking about his words, trying to puzzle her way through the convoluted thought processes that must have somehow led him to his preposterous speech. But if tunneling into the inner recesses of Booth's brain had ever come easily for her, their entire partnership would have been much different. He remained, and was more so now than ever before, somewhat inexplicable.

She ran a paddle brush through her hair automatically, watching disinterestedly as the copper strands fluffed up under the heat of the hair dryer. Held against the nozzle of the dryer, her hair gradually straightened into a gleaming curtain of smooth silk. This new look was a lot of work, and required daily taming of her naturally wavy hair with heat and a variety of chemically suspect products. She'd needed a new look when she picked this style. No reason, really. The desire for small amounts of change was natural, healthy even. There was no deeper psychology to it.

Resolute, she finished styling her hair and went through her mental closet for a temperature-appropriate outfit. Even the small amount of focus that it took to choose clothing was hard-won. Booth's words ricocheted with undiminishing velocity through her mind. _If you're not my girlfriend, I don't have a girlfriend._

She knew how naturally Booth took to being half of a romantic relationship. He was the kind of man who seemed to want to cohabitate. He was good at sharing, good at being pleasant company. It seemed masochistic of him, really, to choose _her _as his partner in these goals. She was none of those things.

She paused halfway into a cashmere sweater, wondering how she would behave when she saw Booth. One night hadn't been nearly enough time to neatly categorize her opinions about their situation. She wasn't thinking clearly. And she had wasted too much of her time last night on silly, juvenile musings. Like that part about him never kissing a woman again if it wasn't her... she knew from vivid personal experience that he was a prodigiously talented kisser. It seemed like a waste.

She scowled at her reflection in the mirror. It was an infuriating situation to be placed in. And though she realized that many women would immensely enjoy being the single-minded pursuit of an impressive man like Booth, she didn't know how to handle it.

And at the familiar knock on her front door, she realized that she was out of time. The day was starting before she was prepared for it, and all she could do was breathe through the trembling in her stomach and hope that even in this confusing new paradigm, she could rely on her partner for the correct social cues.

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"Morning, Bones!" he said brightly, holding a hot-sleeved cup of coffee towards her. His partner looked lovely in any environment, which was really saying something considering the myriad of disgusting backdrops she'd been placed in through the course of their work. But she looked especially lovely in her own home, flanked by her carefully treasured possessions. And he hadn't picked her up at home in far too long.

"Thank you," she replied hesitantly, allowing him inside. He could see the caution on her face, and he tried his best to act normal.

"So we've got a suspected suicide today, Bones. Seems pretty straight-forward. Local."

She nodded casually, lifting the plastic lid from her coffee cup to take a sip. The overly-sweet liquid hit the back of her tongue unexpectedly.

Seeing her flinch slightly, he asked, "Something wrong with your coffee?"

"It's fine," she shrugged, avoiding his eyes.

"It's... fine..." he repeated, unconvinced.

"It's not a big deal, Booth. It's just sweetened, that's all."

"Two sugars, like always," he smiled.

She looked up at him, her clearwater eyes managing to catch his breath. "I've been drinking it black lately," she mumbled.

His smile slipped. "For how long?"

"A couple months," she allowed quietly.

"How did I not notice that?" he asked.

Her wide eyes turned on him once again, but she said nothing, and the moment sobered his optimistic attitude in an instant.

"Yeah, nevermind," he whispered.

"It's not important, Booth," she offered, laying a delicate hand on his sleeve. He looked down at her slender fingers and felt ashamed of himself once again. He squeezed her hand briefly with his own, finding a measure of calm in the gesture.

A small frown dimple marred her brow. "Perhaps I should tell you now that I also have a new couch."

Surprised, he lifted his eyes to find her studying him seriously and couldn't help but chuckle. "New couch, huh, Bones? Let's take a look."

They moved into her living room, where a new burgundy sofa huddled under a colorful smattering of pillows. Booth gently nudged a couch leg with the toe of his shoe. "Very nice. Why'd you trade out the old one?"

"I found it contrasted unaesthetically with Angela's most recent painting," she replied, gesturing to a bold canvas hung above the mantle. It was practically throbbing with energy, painted in thick brush strokes of blood-red, deep violet, and shadows of deep corpuscular blue.

"Angela tells me it's an abstract portrait of the interior of a human aortic valve."

"... the inside of a heart?" he simplified.

"Essentially." Brennan looked up at him shyly. "She told me I'm becoming an expert. But since my specialty has not changed from the skeletal system, I can only assume that she intended the comment metaphorically. And..." her voice faded as she looked up at the piece. "I think it's beautiful."

"Yeah," he said thickly, mesmerized by the flickering emotion playing across her features.

She shook her head slightly, as if to dispel the introspective mood. "Ready to go?" she asked brightly.

"After you, Bones."

**AN: That one was short, but hopefully you found it sweet. I'm writing every spare moment I get, and will hopefully pick up the pace for you guys. I thank you all sincerely for your thoughtful reviews. I get such a kick out of hearing your opinions and knowing you're all out there reading. **


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: If anyone is still reading this story... the world is conspiring against my fic-writing. After getting home from another extended business trip, I lost my hard drive to a shiteous virus and was unable to recover any of my writing. That, combined with the recent episodes of Bones, has left me feeling exceptionally meh about this story. I'm going to continue because you guys are all fantastic and I don't want to leave you hanging. But I'll understand if you smack me down in the reviews. Please don't smack too hard. It's been a really shady week.  
**

The drive to the crime scene was swift, filled with the staticky sounds of a radio news report, and absent of tension. At least, that was, until they pulled to a stop and Brennan felt the need to announce, hand on the car door, some important guidelines.

"I expect to process this crime scene in a completely professional manner, Booth."

He paused, sunglasses halfway to his face. "..Ooookay."

"Please do not distract me with any sort of continuation of our previous conversation," she added.

Sighing, he took a moment to gather his thoughts before turning to face his partner more fully. "Listen, Bones, my goal wasn't to make you uncomfortable. And it certainly wasn't to cause some sort of...imbalance in our partnership. What we do at work is very important to me, you know that."

"So we're in agreement," she added quickly.

He smiled gently. "Do I ever get in your way, Bones?"

She opened her mouth to supply, no doubt, a thorough recitation of the myriad times that he _had_, in fact, gotten in her way, but he stopped her with a quick gesture.

"I'll behave myself," he assured.

Brennan studied the half-tilted grin on his face earnestly. That grin seemed to belie his words, but she would accept his promise for the time being. She nodded tersely and exited the truck, striding across the crime scene with that awkwardly determined strut that only made Booth's grin widen.

He would do his best not to distract her; he was more than distracted enough for both of them already.

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The evidence on the remains supported the hypothesis of a straight-forward suicide, and before long, Brennan was concluding her initial voice notes of the scene. There would be an autopsy, of course, to support her findings, but her examination yielded nothing suspicious. This would be a job for the district's coroner; nothing to suggest that the Jeffersonian's input was required.

And oddly, she was disappointed. She would have welcomed the mental distraction of a new case today. Instead, she had paperwork and the ongoing march of identifications from Limbo cases to return to, which was much less interesting and much less likely to redirect her mind from the tall form of her partner. He was nearby, always nearby, interviewing the local Sheriff, and even when Brennan turned her gaze on the remains, she felt like she could somehow still see him, as if she was attuned to his presence.

Ridiculous. He had stayed true to his word and refrained from distracting her. Ostensibly. Because his very presence, through no fault of his own, was proving a constant distraction. His words simply wouldn't stop bouncing around her mind, even though she should be focusing on the body laying prone before her.

Could he possibly have been serious? About never kissing another woman again? For how long? Certainly not indefinitely. She scoffed at the idea; he was a fit man in the prime of his life and romantic words might spill easily from his mouth, but denying the natural urgings of his body long-term would be much more difficult.

And yet, she'd never known him to exaggerate, or make outlandish promises he couldn't keep. _Well, except that promise to never betray her_, a nagging voice reminded her internally.

She sighed, squatting back on her heels and rolling her neck gently. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh angle of the sun and surveyed the area once again when the sudden sound of footsteps approached her through the grass.

"Almost done there, Bones?" he asked.

"Yes," she agreed, struggling to make out his face. In the harsh sunlight, he was just a dark silhouette. "Injuries are consistent with suicide; the coroner should be able to continue from here."

"Looking extra squinty today, Bones. Where are your sunglasses?"

She paused only briefly. She was simply so tired of thinking about Hannah that she almost chose not to answer his question, just to avoid saying the woman's name out loud. But it was a simple question, and she had a simple answer, so really there was little reason to prevaricate.

"Hannah took them," she shrugged, still struggling to see him.

"What?"

"When she was in the hospital, she noted that I'd failed to bring her a gift, as is traditional. So she asked for my sunglasses in lieu of a gift." Brennan shrugged again. "I don't know where exactly they are, but I assume they're with Hannah."

Brennan turned to the remains again, gathering her instruments and repacking her field kit.

She felt as much as heard Booth's presence behind her, and knew that he had sunk down on his heels to match her level. Which meant that he was going to say something serious and weighty any second...

"Hey, Bones, I'm really sorry about that. I, ah... I'd like to replace them, if you let me. Can't have you squinting all over crime scenes like this. It's just such an easy pun, for starters."

She glanced at him, finally able to see his face because she was now placed directly in his shadow.

"That's not necessary, Booth. I'd simply forgotten to go shopping."

"Hey," he said softly, wrapping a hand gently around her upper arm as if to steady her, or himself, or maybe both of them. "I want to, okay? I want to buy you a new pair of sunglasses. It's my responsibility to fix this," he continued, looking steadily into her eyes in a way that always alerted Brennan when he was trying to communicate more subtext than simple words. "If Hannah took something from you, I'm going to damn well make sure you get it back."

She pondered his words quietly as they walked to the truck. The intensity with which he spoke was unsettling. Now that she knew his feelings, knew them better than she'd ever been ready to know them, it was difficult to hide behind the obscurity she was used to. To pretend that she didn't understand the subtext, that she didn't _know what that meant_. The most immediate discomfort of Booth's recent revelation was that she now knew, irrefutably, what all his words meant. And he knew that she knew. And he watched her expression so carefully when he talked, and he studied her eyes, and he listened to each word she spoke like he was gathering life-altering evidence. It made her feel like a paramecium in a petri dish.

They stood at the back of the truck as she slowly peeled off her Jeffersonian coveralls. The method of removing her examination gear was painstaking, to ensure that there was zero transferral of contaminants from the crime scene. She had pulled the jumpsuit down to her waist and was removing each latex glove in turn when she felt Booth's hand settle itself on the small of her back in a painfully nostalgic way.

"Let me help," he offered, moving to support her so she could stop out of the coveralls more easily.

"I'm fine, Booth, I've done this hundreds of times without assistance."

"Bones, I want to." He paused, looking deeply into her eyes and said quietly, "I feel lucky every day that I'm the one that gets to help you."

She couldn't resist raising an eyebrow at him skeptically.

"Too much?" he grinned playfully. "Alright, alright... can't fault a guy for trying."

She returned the grin, allowing him to bump her shoulder playfully.

"What do you say, Bones? I think we have enough time to squeeze in some sunglasses shopping before we hand over our paperwork."

Laughing, she peeled off the rest of her suit and freed her hair from its ponytail. If she caught his eyes widen and his grin slip slightly as she shook her hair out, she pretended not to notice.

She also did not ask him the penalty for an overdue book. But the idea of saying just that did, in fact, cross her mind.

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The afternoon was more enjoyable than she expected, though she usually disliked shopping malls. Several stores and two gelatos later, she was finding out that Booth was a much more discerning shopping partner than Angela, and surprisingly patient.

"No, definitely not," he scowled, swiping her most recent selection from her face and handing her an oversize tortoiseshell frame. "Let's see this one."

She put the glasses on and tilted her chin up, amused at his studious perusal.

"Not quite, still a little too bug-goggle-ish. Try these," he demanded, switching the glasses out for a new pair.

"Bug goggles?" she laughed, indulging him.

"Can't have you looking like a glaucoma patient, Bones. They have to say... stylish, but not silly," he explained, sweeping her hair off her shoulders as he tilted his head to examine the overall effect. Brennan was beginning to think that this whole expedition was just one ongoing excuse for him to touch her, moving her hair out of the way, adjusting the glasses behind her ears, standing close enough that he must be able to see the reflections of his own eyes in each new set of lenses. It wasn't unenjoyable, though. She was having a hard time keeping a constant smile off her face at his childish banter. It had been so long since they'd spent such... pleasantly aimless time together.

"Wait, wait-" he stopped her. "These are the ones, I can tell." He carefully set a new pair of sunglasses on her nose, aiming the earpieces delicately past her temples before leaning back and giving her a wide smile.

"So?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," he smiled, "Perfect."

She checked her reflection in the nearby wall mirror, verifying his opinion. The glasses did suit her particularly well. She pulled them off and checked the price tag.

"These are very expensive, Booth. Let's look for another pair," she hesitated, uncomfortable with the idea of him spending so much money on such an unnecessary item when she could easily afford them on her own.

"Not even up for discussion, Bones," he said sternly, taking the glasses from her hand and returning them gently to her face. "You look like a movie star."

She smiled, watching his face closely through the sepia tint of the selected lenses. His face was relaxed as he grinned down at her, head tilted thoughtfully. He really was far too handsome. She sometimes thought, foolish thought it was, that she could stare at the attractive lines of his face for hours-the way that smile lines bracketed his mouth, the way his lips curved across his even teeth, the way the strong blade of his nose could have seemed too prominent but somehow fit his face perfectly. It was odd for her to be able to study his face so intently without always pondering the bone structure. She'd certainly thought of it, and could imagine very well what his skull must look like underneath his tissue-it wasn't that. It was more like... she spent more time studying his flesh than she ever had with anyone else. The superficial aspects of his countenance-his eyebrows, eyelashes, beard-shaded jaw-were fascinating for some reason.

"Thank you," she chose carefully, deciding to allow the purchase. If buying a silly pair of sunglasses could keep that smile on his face, she would let him buy as many as he wanted.

His smile stayed in place all through the drive back to the Jeffersonian, until Brennan decided to finally broach the uncomfortable subject that loomed like a pachyderm in the room.

"So, how long do you intend to keep this... vigil?" she asked.

"Sorry, what now?"

"This idea that... you're waiting for me to... do something... how long do you intend to wait?"

He paused, watching the road thoughtfully before glancing at her and replying with surprising casualness, "Forever, Bones."

She accepted the answer quietly and mulled it over for a few moments before firing back with a wholly expected, "Why?"

Booth shook his head vaguely. "A lot of reasons, but... I've been thinking a lot about something I learned in GA-"

"Gamblers Anonymous?" she clarified.

"Yeah... about living honest."

"Honest_ly._"

"Honest," he retorted, a soft smile in place. "Living honest, Bones."

Brennan chewed her lip, watching the multicolor smear of scenery rushing past. "Why me?" she asked baldly.

Booth laughed sharply before shaking his head again. "You know, Bones? Okay, so you're not exactly the woman I always pictured myself with. But that's only because... I don't know, I could never imagine anyone like you."

He glanced at her carefully before continuing. "You're the best person I've ever known. And there was a time, years actually, that I couldn't picture myself with you because... I think I was intimidated by everything that you are. By your success, your fame, your collection of degrees, your wealth," he admitted quietly. "A woman like that, what would she want to do with me, you know?"

Brennan started to speak, uncomfortable as always when he judged himself too harshly, but he interrupted her.

"Look, I mean, a kid out of wedlock, an irritating ex who's always gonna be around until Parker grows up, a gambling problem, a dangerous job with shitty hours, more blood on my hands than anyone but you knows-"

"You _do _sound like a bad catch when you list it all out like that, Booth," she teased.

"Yeah," he sighed with a wry expression. "But."

"But?"

"But for a while now I've been thinking that maybe... I could be good for you. That maybe I can someday deserve to be the one that knows you through and through. I mean, sometimes I still think that I'll never deserve you, but..."

"But?" she repeated, almost dizzy to hear him continue.

"But I want you anyway. Whether I deserve you or not, Bones, I want you." He swallowed, his strong Adam's apple moving in his throat. Taking his eyes off the road for a moment, he glanced at her, his face earnest and calm. "I think, you and I... could be good for each other."

When his eyes returned dutifully to the road before them, Brennan found herself lost in thought. She was thankful that he seemed to be allowing her that space for the time being, because she truly couldn't think of anything to say at that very moment.

His idea that a person could commit totally in a one-way relationship, without having their feelings returned, still seemed implausible to her. The concept was unsettling and still filled her with a disquieting sense of pressure, knowing that her friend's happiness balanced so directly on the outcome of her choices.

But perhaps she owed it to him to consider the situation with an open mind. To give him the benefit of the doubt, as his years of faithful partnership certainly deserved. It seemed like the least she could do was to consider his assertion seriously.

Was it possible that he was right? Could they, in fact, be good for each other?


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: Thanks for the prop-ups on that last chapter, guys. Your reviews were really encouraging spots of sunshine for me, and got me writing this one faster. You're the best!**

Dr. Sweets folded his lanky body forward, peering at his patients carefully.

"And you, Agent Booth?" he continued, "How do you feel about the personal boundaries that you and Dr. Brennan maintain?"

_I don't want any boundaries. No walls, no fences, no lines. I want to be closer to her than the color of her own skin._ "Our boundaries are fine, Sweets," he growled instead.

"Dr. Brennan, you're the one who brought up the term 'boundaries'-surely you must have something to say on the topic?" Sweets prodded.

"I-" Brennan shut her mouth quickly, feeling tricked. She had only been attempting to placate Sweets by proffering a safe topic that the psychologist could easily exhaust for the duration of their hour's session.

"Just answer this, then. Are the boundaries too strict, or not strict enough?"

"Too strict," she answered before she could stop herself.

Booth's eyebrows jumped towards the ceiling as he turned to unexpectedly find his partner actually engaging in Sweets' shrinkology.

"Okay!" Sweets enthused. "Too strict how?"

"It's nothing," she attempted to evade, darting a look at her partner. "Our boundaries are fine. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Come on, Dr. Brennan. We can't make any progress if we don't _step_ _forward," _Sweets said, paddling his hands through a series of overly-articulated gestures.

"It's okay, Bones," Booth said quietly. "I'd, ah... like to know, if there's a problem or anything."

The quiet and oddly vulnerable tone from her partner made her feel instantly contrite. She realized how much he was trying, since it was so wildly out-of-character for him to suffer Sweet's questions. The thought of him making such an effort was... sweet. "It's nothing serious. I just... our boundaries have become more strict lately, and though I recognize the reality of... it was somewhat difficult..."

"I'm not following here, Bones," Booth shook his head.

"For example, you- you asked me once to be part of Parker's village. I didn't understand at the time that you meant temporarily. Perhaps I should have guessed that, but I didn't. And I miss seeing Parker, that's all," she concluded quietly. "He's a very likable child."

Sweets settled heavily back against his chair, wincing sympathetically for Booth. Without apparently meaning to, Dr. Brennan had come out swinging and hit him directly in the... fatherhood.

Booth sighed heavily and stared at the floor until he felt his partner's eyes hesitantly turn to him. _I'm sorry,_ he mouthed to her, completely subsumed by guilt. This time it wasn't just for his partner, but for his son too.

Sweets let the tension simmer for a few moments longer before suggesting that Booth share his feelings about Dr. Brennan's statement. And he was, of course, wholly unsurprised when Booth's vulnerable expression disappeared behind a cloaked neutrality and the agent jumped sharply to his feet with a brusque, "Lunch, Bones?"

"Hmm?" she asked, caught in her own thoughts.

"Lunch? How bout it, Bones?" he repeated, reaching down for her elbow.

"We still have fifteen minutes, guys," Sweets argued half-heartedly.

"You take an early lunch then too, Sweets," Booth suggested. "Just not at the diner—that's where we're going."

The psychologist rolled his eyes as Dr. Brennan gathered her coat and allowed herself to be ushered from the office.

Once out of Sweets' reach, Brennan moved towards the elevators, buttoning her coat. She pulled her phone from the pocket, clicking through her voicemail dutifully.

"Bones?" Booth asked, hovering awkwardly behind her.

"Oh!" she jumped. "I'm sorry, I thought you'd gone back to your office."

He looked askance at her, eyeing her curiously. "Lunch? Didn't we just agree to have lunch back there?"

She returned his gaze blankly for a moment until understanding dawned. "You were serious?" she asked.

"What? Of course I'm... why would you ask that?"

It was Brennan's turn to stare at her partner curiously. "The last few times you've announced a sudden need for lunch during one of our therapy sessions, it was just a codeword that allowed us to escape..." she explained slowly. "We never actually _went _to lunch afterwards. Sometimes you went to lunch with Hannah, but for the most part I just returned to work."

The terminus of Booth's jaw jumped harshly, and Brennan flinched slightly, assuming she had said something inappropriate.

"I didn't mean for that to upset you," she said cautiously, laying her hand carefully on his sleeve. She felt foolish, constantly patting his arms like this, but it was one of her only fallbacks to express friendship. Words seemed too fraught with misunderstanding lately.

"Please-" he grunted, eyes squeezed shut. "Stop being so _nice _to me about this stuff, Bones. _Please._"

"I don't understand..."

"I feel like you're always being careful of my feelings lately. And you shouldn't be. I deserve it," he said rawly, looking deep into her eyes. "I deserve every bit of it. Taking Parker away from you and you away from him, using lunch with you as an excuse to get away from Sweets... I need to feel the weight of this right now, okay? Stop trying to make it hurt less."

With absolutely no idea of how to reply, Brennan simply nodded, trying to pacify him. She understood that he was trying to punish himself for neglecting their friendship, but it seemed irrational and counter-productive to her. If they were really attempting to get their pleasant working partnership back on track, he would need to forgive himself eventually. His contrition was just making her feel awkward.

"I'll just get my stuff and be right with you, okay?" he asked. "Lunch is on me today—no arguing."

_Catholics and their guilt, _she sighed to herself mentally, as she waited for Booth to grab his coat and take her to lunch. She didn't say anything out loud though—she had learned that lesson long ago.

Ooxox xox ox ox oooxo x oxoxoxx xoxox xoxooox x xoxox xxoxox

When the doorbell rang at noon sharp on Saturday, as they had agreed on, Brennan hesitated only briefly to check her reflection in the mirror before opening the door.

"3D SHARKS! SHARKS IN 3D!" Parker shouted in greeting, throwing himself around her hips in a hug so fierce and fast that it nearly crushed the 3D glasses wrapped across his face. She could barely react before he had already catapulted himself into the living room, shouting "I have to go to the bathroom and then we can goooooooooooo!" as he vanished.

His father stood bemused in the doorway. "Late breakfast, extra syrup, sugar seizure. Sorry," he grinned.

Parker had peppered him with shark-related questions all morning, and even though Booth had suggested he save the trivia for Bones, it hadn't slowed the boy's relentless pace of inquiries. "What's the real name for a great white shark?" he'd demanded.

"Fishicus ginormicus," Booth had muttered, blowing the steam off his morning coffee.

"Is that true?"

Booth had looked at his son's earnest eyes and relented. "No," he grinned. "You'll have to ask Bones."

And now they'd finally arrived to collect her, thank goodness. All marine-related inquests could be directed her way.

"I'm looking forward to this," Bones said adorably, rifling through her purse for her apartment key. "I've never been to a three-dimensional film. And I'm bringing Dramamine in case any of us become motion sick."

Booth shuddered, remembering the perilously tall stack of pancakes his son had just ingested. "Let's really, really hope not."

"Are you guys ready?" Parker demanded, skidding to a halt next to them.

"You know, Parker, you probably shouldn't wear your 3D glasses until we're in the theater. They'll just make everything appear blurry," Bones advised.

"I know. I could barely see to pee straight," Parker reported gleefully.

"Parker!" Booth scolded, watching Brennan's mouth twist in an adorable moue of displeasure.

"It's okay," she assured, taking a deep breath. "Let's just..."

"SHARKS IN 3D! 3D BLOODBATH!" Parker hollered, dragging them both to the door by their sleeves.

Booth shot his partner an apologetic half-smile over Parker's head and was relieved to see Bones return his grin. He was almost as excited as his son, but for very different reasons. Not only would he be spending the entire afternoon with his two favorite people, he would get to watch Bones take in her very first schlocky nature-horror movie. He absolutely adored watching Bones discover new things, and being the one to share them with her. Whether she loved it or hated it, he always got a kick out of observing the consummate observer.

Oox xoxoxoxoxo x ox ox xox o xoxoxo xo ox o xo oxoxoxox x xoxooxo xoxoxox xox x

Booth had just turned to sneak a look at his partner when a sudden lunge from a mako shark caused her to jump backwards in her seat with a hilarious "Auugh!"

He couldn't contain his laughter but she didn't seem to notice, mouth slightly agape as she stared, fixated at the movie. Parker must have noticed too, because he snaked the hand that wasn't resting in his greasy popcorn tub onto Bones' lap and wrapped his short fingers between hers.

Booth watched, wide-eyed, as she looked down in surprise and then seemed to squeeze back, returning her gaze to the aquatic chaos before them, contentedly holding hands with his son. Part of him was astonished—neither of them seemed to feel awkward about it at all. Another part of him was jealous—his son had just managed to get further with her than he had. Holding hands at the movies? That was _his _move! And he'd just been bested by a mop-headed tween!

However, he had to admit that they were so darn cute that he was overjoyed. Bones sat between them, the massive 3D glasses perched on her dainty nose. She snuck occasional pieces of popcorn from the tub on Parker's lap and her mouth kept moving with tiny breathless sounds of amazement at the action on the screen, as if she was so engaged with the scenery she'd forgotten where she was. Parker's face was set in a Joker-like grin of gore-glee. The blue wash of watery light from the screen danced over both of their expressions and Booth found himself wishing he had a camera.

_Click._ Mental picture taken, he relaxed back in his seat and turned his attention to the chum-guzzling monsters thrashing around a cameraman in a too-fragile looking shark cage. The movie was pretty cool, sure, but nothing compared to the scene beside him.

Booth felt another pang of regret, still strong enough to kick off a surge of fear-adrenaline. You'd think after all these days he would get used to that sharp, white-hot twinge of shame, but apparently he hadn't yet.

The woman beside him was his _best friend._ And he'd all but ignored her because he was getting some with a woman nowhere near her quality. What kind of friend was he? What kind of father?

Because it was all-too-clear to him again, as he stared at his son's chubby fingers gripping Bones' elegant hand, that she wasn't the only one who'd been hurt when he had unwittingly dismantled their village.

He couldn't undo it. He couldn't explain it. All he could do was do better.

He waited for the next surprise attack, and Bones' reactive gasp, before he found the courage to reach slowly towards her and gently cover her free hand with his own. She glanced down and then up at him, hesitating significantly longer than she had with Parker, and Booth held his breath as he watched the blue reflections skitter across her glasses. He wished he could see her eyes, or that she could see his, but she must have decided it was okay, because after a prolonged moment she turned back to the screen, allowing his fingers their hold on her.

Booth smiled like a total jackass. Even though he'd stolen a move from his own kid, he was feeling pretty proud of himself. He was holding Bones hand, in a dark theater. Sure, he was technically still sharing that privilege with Parker, but somehow that made it even more perfect.

Bones may have asserted many times that she wasn't very domestic, but anyone looking at them in their goofy glasses, matching expressions of amazement, and butter-smeared fingers, would have guessed they were a family.


	12. Chapter 12

The bouquet of lilies Booth held in his hand seemed to be slowly asphyxiating under the power of his grip. Their spear-shaped leaves trembled plaintively and the depths of their delicate flowery throats were rosy-tinged as if slowly losing the battle to breathe. Maybe it was because he was crushing them like a guilty priest with a rosary. And maybe _that_ was because he felt like an ass, standing outside his partner's door like a prom date with a corsage.

He had nothing particular to say to her tonight, no plan. He hadn't called, hadn't asked to stop by. He'd been walking home, past the flower shop he'd passed without thought hundreds of times, when for some reason the shop windows had beckoned to him. Could that be him now? A man who had a reason to stop for flowers on the way home? And a reason that really was no reason at all, but just because he could, and because he wanted to, and because someone would accept them?

He'd poured himself over the threshold to the shop cautiously, feeling out of his element as the green-scented humidity licked him full in the face. There were aisles and aisles of blooms, greens, weird sticks with blossoms on them, tortured looking tree branches that seemed to have been dipped in glitter (could that really be something women wanted?), and the nervous glass sentries of a frightful army of vases.

Luckily, an employee came over to help him. A man. An apparently gay man, but still a man, which made Booth feel slightly less like a bull at a tea party.

"Well, she likes daisies and daffodils," he'd offered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Daisies?" the man wrinkled his nose. "Surely not. That's like saying... I drove past an abandoned lot and I thought of you... enjoy the allergy attack. Now, daffodils-" the man had continued, oblivious to Booth's incredulous expression, "that's a strong flower with good character. A harbinger of spring."

Relieved to have suggested at least one plant that met with the discerning man's approval, Booth had nodded briskly.

"Great. Daffodils it is."

"Soooooooooo unfortunate that we don't have any," the man tipped his head forlornly. "But perhaps the lady would like something different anyway. A change? Let's see..." he'd wandered off, his voice floating backwards over the dim roar of the shop's greenhouse-size heater. "Lisianthus? Is she delicate? Maybe some Dutch iris if she's the traditional sort..."

Sighing, Booth came to a halt in front of a bucket of bright flowers. "What about these?"

"Carnations?" the man's brow jumped. "Only if she's fifteen or you hate her...you could go with a potted masdevalia, very exotic, or a few sprays of dendrobium. Ohhh! Ranunculus! Now that's a fine idea!"

Booth was pretty sure that the man had forgotten he was there and the whole ordeal was starting to piss him off. He wanted to buy some flowers and get out. He'd already bypassed the bucket of yellow roses like they were plutonium, and the entire scene was starting to resemble a smatter of brightly-colored booby traps. "These. What about these?" Booth growled, pointing at a bucket of enormous, star-white explosions.

"Lilies? Well... it's your funeral," he shrugged.

Booth rolled his eyes and started buttoning his coat to leave.

"Wait! That was a joke! Lilies? The funeral flower?" The flower salesman bobbed his head back and forth as if the gesture could somehow jog Booth's memory of a fact that he had never known. "No? Well. Lilies were traditionally used at funerals-they're among the strongest perfumed flowers. Their smell, you know, it covers the smell of death."

"Really?" Booth had asked, suddenly interested. He lifted one of the sturdy-looking flowers to his nose and tentatively inhaled a scent that was, well, really sort of amazing. "Huh," he grunted appreciatively._ Covers the smell of death_, he'd thought to himself. Of all the flowers he could present Bones with at the end of a long workday, he couldn't think of a better metaphor. A little morbid, maybe, but romantic in a Bones-y way.

"I'll take a bunch of these," he'd declared.

And so he had, now, a bunch of lilies nervously approaching Bones' door with him. He didn't know why the moment felt so heavy; it was really no big deal for a partner to bring his partner flowers... right? As he approached her door, he suddenly heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of laughter from inside-Bones sly alto guffaw coupled with the much lower voice of a man. Both of them seemed to be laughing uncontrollably in between snatches of conversation that he couldn't quite make out.

Who was Bones with in there? Booth didn't recognize the voice, and it wasn't really like her to socialize with the squints at her home, so it was probably someone else... His mind spun behind a creased brow. Was Bones on a date? She'd never hinted that she would join him in 'his ridiculous vigil'-as she'd so aptly labeled it-and he certainly wasn't in a place to ask her to. In fact, the whole point of his plan was to prove his loyalty whether or not she offered her own. She could very well have a date in there; she could have been dating this whole time that he'd been pouring his heart out and just been too uncomfortable to mention it.

Booth leaned his head against her doorframe in dejection, listening to the sound of her laughing-really, loudly, laughing. He hadn't heard that in so long. If there was some guy in there who could make her laugh like that... he clenched his jaw fiercely. It was one thing to slowly come to believe that he could be good for her; it was another thing entirely to think that he was somehow the _only_ man who could be good for her. Maybe he'd just used up his share of chances, and somebody else was making her laugh like that right now...

He heard the laughter approaching the door and straightened up, too late to disappear, glancing frantically around him before shoving the lilies behind a hallway radiator just as the door opened.

"Booth?" she asked, her face glowing. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Bones, I just-" he glanced behind her, curiosity getting the best of him. "_Russ_! Hey-hey it's Russ! Your brother! Good to see you man!" he crowed like he'd just won the lottery.

He was greeted with a markedly less enthusiastic reaction. "Booth," he replied tersely.

"We were just going out to grab some dinner," Brennan supplied. "Would you like to..."

"Oh, hey, don't worry about. I don't want to intrude, I was just stopping by."

"-it's fine, Booth, we wouldn't mind at all," she pushed.

"Actually, Temp, I was looking forward to just hanging out with you," Russ said, shooting Booth an unmistakably cold glance. "Besides, I'm sure Booth probably wants to spend time with his girlfriend. The, ah, the journalist, right?" he added in a tone that indicated he knew very well of Hannah's journalistic talents.

"Actually, Russ, they broke up-" Brennan stage-whispered, hoping to cut the conversation off before Booth's smile could drop any further. Her partner and Russ seemed to be having some sort of males-only silent conversation over her head, involving a lot of jaw clenching and eye narrowing. It looked to her like the territorial display of wild gibbons.

"Ah, broke up, huh?" Russ asked coldly. "That's too bad. And now you're here. At my sister's apartment... just dropping by. At night."

Booth blushed with discomfort and anger. "I'll talk to you later, Bones. Sorry to bother you."

"Booth, wait!" she whined, the anxiety in her voice instantly upsetting both men. She tilted her head at her brother, and they had their own silent conversation while Booth hovered awkwardly outside the door.

Sighing, Russ rolled his eyes and leaned forward to drop an aggressive, and possibly territorial, kiss on his little sister's forehead. "You better call me soon," he muttered irritably. Brennan's eyes shone with gratitude as she watched Russ shoulder his coat on. "Dinner next week instead?" he asked.

"Definitely."

"You're buying, and we're going somewhere with diamond-plated forks," Russ grouched.

Brennan laughed, as Booth looked on uncomfortably. "I've never heard of such a thing, but we can look," she agreed.

"-Listen, guys, I really don't want to mess up your plans here-" Booth interrupted.

"Lost my appetite anyway," Russ replied, as he turned his eyes back to his sister's partner. "Seeya, Temp." Russ pointedly failed to say goodbye to Booth as he shouldered past the larger man with a bit too much force.

Booth took the shove stoically. He understood Russ's position, respected it even. But he was also the man who got Brennan to give Russ another chance, and without his needling her, Russ wouldn't even be a part of her life. That should count for _something_, he thought. And he'd always thought Russ was a decent guy...

"Hey Booth!" Russ called, flinging the crushed bouquet of lilies square at the agent's chest. "Are these your pretty posies?" Russ snickered, walking towards the elevator.

_Prick_, Booth decided.

"Where did those come from?" Brennan asked, examining the abused flowers in Booth's grasp.

Looking at her wide eyes, Booth decided to punt. "The... hallway?" he swallowed.

Perplexed, Brennan's brow crumpled in that little dent that absolutely drove Booth wild, and he shook his head ruefully. "Still hungry, Bones? I happen to know a place that _does_ have diamond-plated forks."

"Do you?" she laughed.

"And gold-dusted dinner rolls too."

"Hmm... very unhealthy."

"Nah, you just have to wash 'em down with the Fabergé punch."

Brennan laughed, charmed by his usual childishness. She cut her eyes at him suspiciously. "I think my brother's unhappy with you."

"Ya think, Bones?" he asked wryly.

She cinched a scarf around her neck and grabbed her purse, flicking the lights off behind her. They were plunged into immediate darkness, with Booth's wide shoulders backlit from the hallway light.

"Don't let him bother you. Sometimes he just needs to sulk for a while. He'll come around."

"He cares about you, Bones, I know."

"He thinks you don't. Care about me, I mean," she whispered.

He moved closer, so that she had to look up to meet his shadowed eyes. "He's wrong," Booth vowed, swallowing at the nearness of her beautiful face.

He brushed a hand down her arm so gently, tracing her fingertips with his own, watching a shiver dance over her body. He edged even closer, unable to resist the impulse to feel her body heat so near his own. "I care...so much, Bones."

She studied him for a long, careful moment, weighing his sincerity against her fears.

"Okay," she said quietly, taking his hand delicately and leading him out of her apartment.

**AN: I apologize for the formatting issues with the stupid dashes... new text editor. Also, I *heart* my reviewers! Thank you all for taking the time to be supportive. I hereby present you each with your own bouquet of death-defying lilies. : )**


	13. Chapter 13

As Booth finished up his interviews with the local police, Brennan completed her last survey of the crime scene, flanked by a reluctant trio of FBI techs she vaguely recognized from past cases.

"Okay," she said briskly, "I want the body and surrounding clay transported to the Jeffersonian, 36 inches deep and... let's say, 56 inches wide."

"Do you want that too?" one of the techs asked flatly, pointing to the victim's skull, which had rolled several feet away from the otherwise-interred remains.

Brennan missed the smothered looks of amusement passing between them, looking mildly perplexed at the tech's question. "If you're referring to the skull, then yes, of course that should be transported also," she said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

"It's just that you said _body_, and I wanted to double-check that you also wanted the skull," the tech responded with a too-innocent expression.

Brennan cocked her head at him, confused. "The skull is, in fact, a part of the body-something I certainly hope you learned throughout your forensic training, where...ever that training occurred," she lectured dubiously.

The second tech shook his head, barely concealing the laughter trying to bubble up from his gut. "Nope, Dr. Brennan, all due respect but I'm pretty sure that all humans have a body," he gestured at himself exaggeratedly, "_and_ a skull."

Brennan opened and closed her mouth several times in quick succession, unable to formulate a response. She could barely believe the staggering incompetence of the FBI's forensics techs. A spot of scarlet frustration was beginning to burn on each of her cheekbones.

"So, just checking here," the third tech chimed in, bright-eyed, "you want the skull, but _also_ the body."

She opened her mouth to unleash a tirade of righteous indignation at them when she was stopped by a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Bones, they're messing with you."

She turned to find herself looking up at Booth's face, tilted with a sympathetic grin.

"Messing with me?" she repeated dumbly.

Booth moved his broad hand between her shoulder blades, massaging her back gently in discreet circles. "Yeah, you know, they're kidding around," he told her softly before turning his gaze to each of the techs in turn. "Because if they _weren't_ just kidding around, if they were say-_actually_ showing you disrespect-they would have to answer directly to me," he cut his eyes fiercely at the three men in a clear unspoken threat. "Because I do not tolerate anyone disrespecting my partner."

Booth moved to clap his hand on the nearest tech's shoulder, delivering a congenial-looking but excruciatingly firm clench. "And I think they know that. They know that, _right_?" he asked the techs, tight-smiled.

"Yes sir-"

"-Absolutely-"

"Yes sir."

"Faaaaantastic," he drawled, turning his partner in the direction of the truck.

Booth piloted the truck away from the crime scene, gravel crunching under the tires as he u-turned in the direction of the city. Temperance was sitting stiffly in the passenger seat, holding herself rigidly to the very center of the cushion, as if unwilling to take up any more space than she had to. Booth noticed the slight frown on her face as she seemed lost in thought.

"You okay there Bones?"

Slightly startled, she turned to meet Booth's gentle eyes. She had been replaying the incident with the techs in her mind, and was disappointed with herself as usual. It wasn't that she was unappreciative of Booth stepping in like that-she appreciated that he stood up for her, though she'd only realized that he'd been doing exactly that in hindsight. No, she was okay with her partner 'getting her back' like that; it was just that once again she'd been denied the opportunity to stand up for herself. Because she hadn't caught on in time. She'd missed whatever intrapersonal signals should have conveyed that the techs were being facetious. Sometimes she wondered if she was as oblivious to human subtext as Zach.

"Hey, you're not letting that... those idiots get to you, are you?" he asked softly.

Brennan shrugged, studying the flow of scenery outside the window absently. "I'm used to being teased."

The truck swerved slightly and Brennan looked over to find Booth's knuckles white on the steering wheel, his face rigidly fixed on the road.

"Listen, don't- don't be upset about this, okay? Those guys like you. They weren't teasing you, they were just goofing around... being goofballs, okay? They weren't teasing you," he repeated.

Not understanding the sudden tension in Booth's voice or posture, Brennan sought to clarify. "Really, Booth, it's alright. I imagine that everyone's adolescent experiences prepare them differently for their adult lives. It just... happens that my adolescent years prepared me quite well to endure the teasing of my peers. I'm really not bothered by it," she explained quietly, hoping to relax him.

Booth glanced at her, jaw clenched. "If I really thought they meant it in an unkind way, Bones, I'd..." he shook his head. "I'd honestly probably end up having my sidearm confiscated and get slapped with at least a month of desk duty."

She laughed sadly. "I appreciate the ill-advised gesture, Booth."

Brennan returned to her study of the passing roadside, propping her head against the window, slightly more comfortable than she'd been at the start of their trip. Idle contemplation was purposeless; after experiencing a social situation with an undesirable outcome, she forced herself to analyze the occurrence and her actions (or lack of actions) in order to arrive at a helpful conclusion to better prepare her for the next situation. The trouble was, she wasn't quite sure why the techs had chosen to 'goof around' in a way that so obviously excluded her-and only her-from the goofing.

"I suppose they don't like me much," she mused out loud.

"Whaaaat?" Booth whined grumpily, clearly having been under the impression that the issue was concluded.

"I mean, I probably haven't given them reason to like me. Perhaps I should try harder to... learn their names for starters. And I surmise that, given the context of their teasing, they believe I view them as lesser individuals."

Booth nodded slowly, actually impressed with his partner's sweet, introspective side. She didn't often worry about what others thought of her, but when she indulged that vulnerability, it made his chest swell with the urge to protect her.

"Though," she continued off-handedly, "they _are_, of course. Lesser individuals."

_And, there ya go_, Booth thought to himself, sighing deeply.

"Less intelligent, less formally trained, less observant, less valuable..." she prattled on.

"Okay, Bones, right there!" he exclaimed. "You know I never want to see anybody teasing you, and you know I'll always have your back, but sometimes... Bones, you've gotta admit, sometimes you bring it on yourself."

"What?" she asked, offended.

"I mean, come on! You can be so... _snooty_. So holier-than-thou."

"Which of the claims that I asserted is false, Booth?" she demanded.

He groaned. "None of them-you're completely right. But you shouldn't say those things, Bones. It's okay to think them, but when you just... blaaah, say them out loud... you're asking to get teased."

At her haughtily miffed expression, he relented a bit. "Just so you know," he finished carefully.

She studied him for a few long seconds, and Booth felt his neck turning rosy under his collar. He wondered how much he'd pissed her off. He wondered if she was going to clam up and give him the cold shoulder or launch herself into a rhetorical autopsy of how each of his statements was irrefutably incorrect or something.

"I thought you were supposed to... love me," she said bitterly.

"What?" he laughed incredulously. "What does that have to do with anything?"

She sniffed delicately. "I understood that you held me in very high regard."

"Bones," he corrected, finding her somehow so adorable at that moment that his voice sounded out her nickname like a caress. "Loving you doesn't mean I can't see your faults. It just means that... that I kind of love them too."

"Aha!" A wide grin lit her face triumphantly and she pointed at him with a flourish. "So you admit that you love my snootiness!"

"Ooookay," he chuckled, feeling suddenly that he had been played. He stabbed his finger at the radio buttons, seeking a station-any station-to shut his snooty partner up. "Cute," he muttered, unable to stop smiling as the sound of top-40 drivel filled the truck.

"It seems to me, Booth" she soldiered on, raising her voice to a near-yell, "that you have unwittingly handed me an 'ace card' as you'd say, to end all of our arguments." She smiled smugly and snorted. "Tactical blunder."

"What's that, Bones?" he grinned, pointedly turning the volume up. "Can't hear you!"

"I said!" she shouted, "that you have-oh." She nodded her head slyly. "I get it. You're pretending you can't hear me."

Booth only pointed at his ear helplessly and shrugged.

They both sat grinning like fools for the rest of the ride home.

When they arrived at the Jeffersonian, Booth pulled the truck to a stop reluctantly. He'd missed their easy bickering; arguing with Bones was more invigorating than almost anything else he'd experienced. The woman really knew how to push his buttons, and God help him, he enjoyed watching her do it. And she was right, with a feminine intuition that surprised him coming from his intellectual partner, that he'd unwittingly handed her an 'ace card' to win every argument. Had handed it to her, in fact, long ago. But now that she knew it, he was in _so_ much trouble.

Hand on the door handle, Brennan turned to say goodbye to her partner, but the thoughts that had filled her mind to overflowing on the ride home seemed determined to escape.

"When we first met, before you... loved me," she said, finding herself becoming oddly comfortable with the words-the kind of statement she could never have uttered out loud a short few weeks ago but was quickly becoming somehow enraptured with- "you didn't like me at all. Was it because I was... snooty?"

"I didn't dislike you, Bones, believe me," he managed awkwardly. "I'm not sure I have words for how I felt about you at first. Let's just say... I felt a lot of things."

"But dislike was foremost among them," she prompted, unsure of why she wanted him to admit it.

Booth was starting to feel another rhetorical trap coming his way and refused to play along. "What's going on, Bones?"

She paused, frowning slightly as she planned the words in her mind. "I have a very good memory, Booth."

He nodded, confused. "I know that."

"So it's hard for me to just... accept the current reality between us without... without remembering all the things in the past. Like when you used to dislike me the way those FBI techs probably dislike me, or when I slapped you and called you horrible names, or when... Hannah, and..."

"Bones," he cut her off quietly, leaning across the seat to gently wrap her hands in his own. "I know that we have a lot of baggage behind us. And yeah, I've never gone into a relationship with this much... stuff... already on the balance. In fact, I've never heard of _anyone_, really, doing that..." his voice trailed off thoughtfully before he snapped himself back to attention, focusing on her eyes. "But here's the thing. For all the bad stuff we both remember, all that baggage, there's so much more good stuff, Bones. _So_ much more."

He could feel his eyes misting as he tried to convince her of the very truth of his life.

"The good, the bad, it's all part of our story, Bones. I once heard the phrase 'burdens that allow us to fly' somewhere, and... that's how I feel about everything in our past."

He stared at her soft features intently, struggling to maintain his composure when all he really wanted to do was bundle her fragile frame into a rib-shattering embrace and just hug the sadness out of her.

"Does that make sense?" he asked softly.

Her clear blue eyes searched his earnestly as she considered his words.

"Yes," she answered simply.

Booth's heart lurched in grateful relief. He brought Bones' hands carefully to his lips and pressed a firm kiss onto her knuckles, bowing his head and heart over her fingers as if in penance.

"Goodnight," she said quietly, gently extricating her hands from his and exiting the truck. She paused in the doorframe, surrounded by the DC night skyline and turned to face him nervously.

"Booth," she asked, "do you have plans Friday night?"

Swallowing nervously, he shook his head no. He really had no idea, without checking his calendar, whether he had plans or not. Didn't matter anyway.

"Would you have dinner with me?" she asked quietly.

His eyes smiled back at her. "Yeah, Bones," he replied quietly, amazed and humbled and barely able to believe that she was asking him out. "I'd really like that."

**AN: I'm getting shipped out again (geeeeeez, aren't these soldiers trained enough already?) but will be back stateside in a few days and ready to post, government-willing. : ) I'm loving your feedback and feeling that you guys don't think Booth has grovelled quite enough, so no worries-it's not going to be smooth sailing from here on out. I've got a couple disasters up my devilish sleeve. ; ) Thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: This chapter's still rated T, but it's extra-steamy, so take off your eyeglasses and tie your hair back whydoncha. : )**

Stepping into the restaurant was like stepping into a vault. After the bustle and percussion of the street, the quiet felt almost cottony, and it took a moment before Booth could hear anything but the nervous beating of his heart. He was right on time, at the restaurant Bones had insisted on meeting at rather than allowing him to pick her up.

He wasn't sure why she was so insistent on meeting like this: maybe it was some sort of equal-footing thing to ensure that they wouldn't argue about who should drive. Or maybe it was so that she could leave independently whenever she wanted in case the date wasn't going well. He really hoped it wasn't that.

He shrugged out of his coat, flicking miniscule drops of fog from his jacket lapels. From somewhere in the periphery came the sound of a single string sustained, resonant and commanding in the hush. Too somber to be a violin-maybe a cello? Sibilant pops of percussion rose to his ears next: the ceramic scrape of cutlery against dishware, the ting of thin glasses, the low susurration of intimate conversations.

It was immediately clear to Booth that this was not a casual type of establishment. This was the type of restaurant you'd take a date-an important date. He swallowed nervously and handed his trench to a coatcheck who had appeared out of nowhere, pocketing the paper slip absently.

When he turned around, the maitre de had swooped in with a world-weary, patronizing tilt to his head.

"Meeting someone," Booth mumbled, tipping his head in the direction of the bar.

"Of course," the man gestured courteously.

Booth allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim, reddened lights as he scanned the clusters of people around the wood-paneled bar area. He was unsure whether this habit came from his military background or his time spent as an agent, but he was, without fail, a man aware of his surroundings. And tonight it seemed more important than usual that he keep his bearings.

The pressure of the occasion was weighing on him; he couldn't remember ever being this nervous for a date in his life. And even though he told himself over and over that this was just his partner, just his best friend, he couldn't get a single thought out of his mind: that this was his last chance. That everything was riding on this one opportunity, that he never could have expected, when Bones had asked _him _out.

He wanted to be the man she used to believe he was. He wanted to prove to her that he was still that guy who believed in making love, in miracles, in loyalty and friendship. That he was still that good man. That he'd made mistakes but could make it up to her if just given the chance.

And now, sooner than he had ever dared to hope, she was giving him that chance. And he felt like he wasn't ready. After settling his heart so hard for this _one _woman, would he ever feel ready?

He flipped the poker chip in his pocket nervously, sliding his eyes down the bar's patrons until he saw her, and his heart hummed in satisfaction. She had her back to him, but he would have recognized the slender column of her body anywhere. She was wearing an ivory colored dress that revealed her pale shoulders, and the rosy pendulum lights above her burnished the auburn curtain of her hair to a fiery copper glow.

She turned suddenly, as if she could feel his gaze burning into her, and their eyes met. Booth felt chastened, having been caught checking her out, until he realized that he was finally allowed to do exactly that. They were on a date, and he didn't have to hide his interest in her anymore.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, watching the slightest hint of a smile grace her lips as she held their eye contact across the distance. She made no move to approach him and he made no move to meet her; they simply stilled, locked in a look that simmered and heated as if they were in a room alone.

His gaze flicked quickly from her eyes to her lips, and if she noticed their redirection, she didn't reveal it. And if he noticed her own eyes dart briefly to trace the broad line of his shoulders, he let it slide.

And before he could catch himself, his eyes were sliding farther down her obliquely-turned body, tracing the golden spill of light over her delicate shoulders and the swell of her full breasts in profile, to the lean lengths of her crossed legs and the flirtatious peek of her toes within her heeled sandals.

He couldn't believe he was finally allowed to undress her with his eyes like this; he couldn't believe she was returning his curiosity in spades. It felt like a dam bursting, to finally unleash the energy that had crackled between them from their first meeting, an energy that was so overwhelmingly sexual it threatened to obliterate all the other feeling between them.

Without knowing how he'd gotten there, he had crossed the room and found himself directly in front of her, leaning into her space with a challenge in his eyes that he hadn't revealed since that day in the shooting range when she'd dared him to _be a cop_.

She tilted her chin up in a look that returned his challenge with interest, the blue light from her eyes singeing him deliciously, and he couldn't stop himself-didn't want to stop himself ever again-from palming the back of her head and tilting her lips against his in a possessive, passionate kiss.

They were both breathless when they pulled apart, slightly amazed at the sudden urgency of this attraction between them, having simmered and grown rich for so many years; an indefinable energy that they'd both mastered for so long had suddenly overtaken them with its power. As they shared the millimeters of air between their lips, Booth's fingers carefully caressed the skin of her soft cheek.

"I meant to wait until the end of our date to do that but... then I saw you and... I had a little trouble with the... waiting part," he explained lamely, smiling gently at her soft laughter.

His fingers traced through her hair with open curiosity, as if he was seeing her again for the first time.

She tipped her face gently towards his hand, discreetly nuzzling into the warmth of his fingers.

"I'm glad you're here," she said quietly.

"Bones," he whispered reverently, so enraptured that he was no longer aware of their surroundings.

His hand stilled on the side of her neck, cupping her jaw delicately, exploring the warmth and texture of her skin. He felt the tiniest tremor of a shiver pass through her body and watched, fascinated, as her lips parted just slightly. He wanted to taste her again, with an almost chemical compulsion, as if he'd already developed an addiction.

His memory of that tequila-slaked kiss in the rain so many years ago, the last time they'd unleashed the attraction between them, burned in his mind. He wouldn't have thought it possible at the time, but he wanted her so much more now, with a ferocity that that impulsive young man he used to be wouldn't have been able to handle.

And he had to handle it better now. He owed their relationship a shot at romance.

"Should we?" he asked softly, offering her his arm.

When she descended from her perch at the bar, he noted a faint wobble in her step and pulled her even closer to his body for support.

They followed the maitre de across the restaurant, almost comically slowly, like some absurdly pretentious parade. The carpet was menacingly plush underfoot, and Brennan's heels sank perilously into the nap, giving her an excuse to tighten her hold on Booth.

Their table was built into a curved partition, intimately situated away from the other guests. They were thankful for the privacy; if the conversation turned to work topics, other diners would be unsettled to say the least to overhear their words. On the other hand, if the conversation continued in the vein that it had started at the bar, the maitre de was wise to hide them away in a corner.

Two attendants flanked their table and Brennan was irritated to discover that this was the type of establishment that insisted on not only pulling out a woman's chair but also draping a napkin directly onto her lap, which she had always considered an uncomfortable invasion of her personal space. She had to fight not to slap the young man's hand away from her legs and looked up to see a knowing grin on her partner's face.

She hated sometimes how easily he seemed to peer into her thoughts.

Booth set his menu aside and smiled at the pique on Brennan's face. The dim lighting cast charcoal-soft shadows beneath her cheekbones and deepened the recesses of her auburn hair mysteriously. It was a good thing that their usual fare of workaday meals didn't include candlelight, because the soft flicker from the table votive reflected alluringly in her eyes and made him wonder how the rest of her would look in candlelight.

"So...he started. "This is a pretty fancy place. I'm not sure they're going to have any french fries for you to steal off my plate."

She smiled. She knew that this restaurant wasn't Booth's type of establishment, and part of her had thought that maybe the best way for her to gain some confidence in their new detente would be to throw Booth off his game a bit. But that plan had clearly failed. As soon as he'd arrived, he'd somehow muted all sound, blanked out all other sights, and focused her attention magnetically where he wanted it. And then that kiss... that kiss.

This place made her feel oddly soporific, the oppressive hush like being underwater. It seemed to be slowing her thoughts, turning them languid and fecund. She found herself appreciating the sight of Booth in the candlelight. His eyes seemed darker, the sculpted angles of his face more prominent.

When the sommelier appeared, she pointed to a mid-priced shiraz just to get rid of him. Maybe some wine would help her focus. Maybe not. Either way, it would be something to do, something to wrap her fingers around and rest her eyes on so that maybe she could stop staring at her partner like a geneticist with her first supercomputer.

The next few minutes were occupied by choosing their meals. Booth could barely remember what he had ordered; his sole focus was on not declaring how sexy his partner was, on not staring too long into her magnetic eyes, on not reaching out to cover her hand with his own. He even thought that he could _smell _her, catching an occasional whiff of something citrusy and soft.

The waiter arrived with their wine, which Brennan approved as Booth looked on with amusement; she wasn't trying to intimidate the waiter but her discerning tone certainly straightened the kid's spine immediately. They ordered their meals; Booth wasn't even sure what he'd selected. He was having a tiny amount of trouble concentrating.

"So," he started awkwardly. "If this was a normal first date for you, what would you talk about now, Bones? He was suddenly curious to know about her average first date so that he could take careful aim and completely annihilate them all with _his _date.

Brennan tipped her head curiously. "I suppose I'd start with basics. Where do you live, what do you do, assuming I don't already know these things, which is unlikely." She paused, biting the corner of her lip thoughtfully. "Generally, I focus on what _not _to say more than what to say. I have to refrain from talking about work too much..." she explained.

"You don't talk about work on dates?" he asked.

"I've learned to provide only the basic outline," she demurred, as a waiter interrupted them with to refill their wine glasses. "I usually find my writing to be a safer topic of conversation," she continued. "But even then..."

"Even then...?"

"It's... not always an ideal topic, that's all."

He nodded. "All the blood and gore makes your dates squeamish, huh?"

Momentarily perplexed, she gazed at him. Was he deliberately misunderstanding her or did he genuinely not ascertain her true meaning?

"It's not the 'blood and gore' as you put it that my dates have objected to in the past... it's... well..." she tipped her head meaningfully at him.

Blank, he shook his head, not following.

"It's you, Booth. Why I don't talk about work. Why I don't even like to talk about my books. Whether it's questions about Andy Lister or how long we've worked together... my dates just seem to proceed more smoothly when there's less... _you_ in the conversation."

"Oh."

Thankful for the first course that had just arrived in front of them, Booth listlessly pushed some greens around with his fork. He had no idea how to respond to her last comment. Should he apologize for apparently being all over her life, to the extent that she had to struggle to find topics of discussion that couldn't lead back to him? Should he feel bad for his role in her past romantic flops? Or should he feel smug and self-satisfied that he'd managed to derail the losers who'd come before him, even if unwittingly?

Definitely the latter, he decided, shooting her a cocky grin.

Luckily, she smiled back, seemingly too distracted by her salad plate to lecture him for his arrogance.

"This is the part of a date," she continued quietly, "where I'd already know if I wanted to see you again."

His eyes narrowed. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear her verdict. Apart from striding across the bar and mauling her with his mouth, he'd provided very little in the way of scintillating conversation so far. He'd been too busy studying the shape her lips made as she swallowed her wine, too busy noticing the delicate taper of her fingertips and wondering what her hands might feel like on his bare skin.

So he decided to distract her before Professor Brennan could slap him with an unsatisfactory grade, completely ignoring the entree that had just been set in front of him.

"This is the part of the date where I would pretend to be _fascinated _ by what you've been saying... you can tell because I'm leaning towards you and I have this thoughtful expression on my face, see?" he teased.

She laughed, surprised at his playfulness. "You would _pretend?" _she asked in mock outrage.

Booth nodded, placing his fork quietly on the table and pinning her with a gaze so heavy and intense that she swallowed convulsively.

"I'm not pretending this time, Bones. I'm definitely fascinated-not just because of the conversation." He very deliberately dropped his gaze to her lips, which felt suddenly dry.

Blushing to the roots of her hair, Brennan cleared her throat.

"It's odd to think of what this evening would be like if it were our first date. Well, I mean, I suppose it _really is _our first date, but..." she stammered sweetly. "It doesn't feel like it. After all, I've already seen you naked," she joked.

Booth went still. She was joking, sure, but all he really noted was that Bones was talking about _naked. _And _every _part of his anatomy tightened with anticipation just from the way she throatily sounded out the word: _naked._

Normally, if a conversation with his partner veered into such territory, he would back off, keep it casual and crack a joke. Smooth it over, keep it superficial. But not tonight; tonight he was drunk on the freedom of flirting, and possibly the third glass of wine he'd poured after the waiter brought their second bottle. So he didn't back off-he jumped in.

"And what did you think of that, Bones?"

"Think of what?"

"Seeing me naked," he said softly.

Her gaze flew to his like a flock of panicked birds. "I-" she stumbled.

Booth's face remained serious, not allowing her the easy escape of humor. He really wanted to know what she'd thought of him, and he really wanted to find a way to make her say the word _naked _again.

She glowed. She seemed to be thinking through his question obediently and she was literally glowing. He swore her skin had somehow taken on the sheen of crystals. If this is what her face looked like when she was just thinking sexually, what must it look like when she actually...

"I admit I enjoyed it very much," she offered quietly, her voice silky. "I'd been aware, obviously, of... your impressive musculature... but I wasn't prepared for your skin to look so... smooth," she said bashfully.

Booth's breathing had gotten steadily shallower as she talked and he was almost light-headed, hanging on her every word.

"... I wanted to touch you," Brennan admitted, looking down at her napkin nervously.

"Bones," he started hesitantly, feeling the need to offer up his own secret in the sudden intimacy. "That time, after the Santa bomb exploded all over me... you have no idea..." he shook his head gravely. "Alone in the lab, with you acting all no-nonsense while _unzipping my pants,_ Bones. My God," he groaned. "Do you have any idea how many fantasies I've had that start exactly like that?"

Her eyes, blue lasers in her pink-flushed face, pinned him with their intensity. "What happens next? ...In your fantasies?" she asked breathlessly.

A shaky groan escaped his lips as he stared at the slow rise and fall of her chest, the way the blush had snuck south from her cheeks to decorate her neck and collarbones. He knew he shouldn't answer. That would be an answer too far; things were already heating up beyond his tenuous control and God help him, he couldn't just sit across a table from Bones and graphically describe all the ways he'd mastered her in his fantasies. Could he?

Booth swallowed tightly, pushing his plate out of the way and laying his hands palm-up near hers in invitation.

Cautiously, Brennan placed her hand on top of his and they both watched together as his larger hand curled around hers. His fingers were thicker, darker, rougher-skinned as they traveled over her own more delicate fingers. They explored eachother's hands in intricate silence, the space between their palms growing humid and moist.

Her hand fisted into a ball of tension, his large hand wrapping over and around her fist protectively. His long index finger invaded the curled space between her finger and thumb, nudging around the sensitive area before boldly pushing his finger knuckle-deep past the soft folds of skin on her hand. His eyes, serious-dark and intent, never left hers as his finger continued invading her hand in a none-too-subtle parody of sex.

Brennan's lips parted slightly, her breath coming in shallow pants as her eyelids lowered to half-mast, lost in the seductive promise he was making. Her hand tightened on his convulsively, both of them exquisitely aware of the other's thoughts.

The waiter chose that precise moment to appear table-side and ask, "May I interest you in some dessert this evening?"

"Check," Booth commanded tersely.

They paid, made their way through the coatcheck and out of the restaurant in a sizzling electrical storm of delicious tension.

Mindful of the wine they'd drank, Booth hailed a cab and barked his address at the cabbie. He turned to his partner in the darkness of the backseat, the moment thrilling him with awareness. He was finally with her, next to her, in the backseat of a cab so similar to the ones she'd disappeared from his view in too many times.

Her lips seemed swollen as she gazed back at him, docile-eyed and curious, the headlights of passing cars chasing over the beautiful lines of her face.

Booth's warm hand gripped her bare knee firmly. He wasn't sure if he placed his fingers there to calm them both down, to ease them back from the brink they'd found themselves so quickly before, or just because he wanted to.

But he found himself moving higher, as they both watched the progress of his fingers on her skin. Her leg was the texture of flower petals, and so warm.

He watched her face carefully as his fingers found the edge of her dress. "Is this okay?" he breathed, fixated with the way her head had fallen back luxuriantly on the headrest.

Booth angled his body over hers, inching closer, and she turned her head back towards him, intense desire written on her features. Their lips met cautiously, carefully, exploring slowly with a closeness that belied their first date.

Her mouth was soft under his, warm and mysterious, a combination of sensations and tastes and touches that were both familiar to him and excitingly new. Everything that she was to him collided together spectacularly; friend, partner, most trusted, most wanted, sexy and soft, the standard.

The kiss went from tender and tentative to demanding in a split second, as their tongues slid and slipped together, reacquainting possessively. Booth's hand slid brashly underneath her dress, clenching and kneading the silky skin of her thigh as they attempted to press their bodies together, heedless of the cab driver's comfort.

"God-"

"Booth," she groaned.

"Oh, baby..."

"Shhhhh..."

They spilled out of the cab in a heated flurry of humid skin and too-confining fabric and desperately welded bodies. Brennan had to wrestle the key out of his hand, because he was too intent on cupping her ass in his broad hands to bother opening his own door.

He knew they were blowing past first, second, and third base at a dangerous clip, but he just couldn't stop. Every part that he dared to place his hands on seemed to inflame her even more to the point that he felt like he was juggling fire.

When they finally struggled into his apartment, shut safely inside, the last of his restraint vanished and he bullied her against the door, pinning her still with the pressure of his hips and feasting on her slender neck. The sounds she was making, low throaty purrs and gasps of pleasure, fed his hunger, tightening and swelling his groin almost to the point of pain, making him plow his hips into the soft notch of her legs artlessly.

Her hands were everywhere, delving under his suit cleverly, tracing thin lines of shivering desire in their wake. She couldn't decide what to touch first, what to worship, but his shoulders unerringly drew her interest and she hooked her palms over top of them, relishing the feeling of being surrounded and encaged by his broad body. She writhed and wriggled mindlessly against him, almost incoherent from the adrenalin and hormones flooding her brain in a sensual wave, struggling to ease the ache in her heavy breasts by pressing herself fiercely against the flat plane of his torso.

"Sweet, so... baby..." he mumbled, sucking her earlobe into his mouth, his hastened breathing an excruciatingly hot tempo against the sensitive folds of her ear.

She writhed against him, forcing him to move his head so that she could bite his own earlobe in retaliation.

The sting of her little teeth against his flesh startled him and amped up his need. He brought both hands to her breasts in retaliation, grasping as much of her pillowy flesh in his palms as he possibly could, making her gasp.

He _had to _get her clothes off. He'd never felt so out of control in his life. He turned her briskly in his arms and walked her in the direction of his bedroom, wrapping his body around hers from behind and bending his head to suckle the nape of her elegant neck as they stumbled together.

She had never felt as alive as she did at that very second, with her partner's work-weathered hands pushing and prodding her pliable body into his bedroom. She was completely adrift, lost to sensation, as she turned her body back towards his and wrapped herself around him. It felt so surreal to finally add 'lover' to the list of ways she'd intimately known this man. It was almost too good to be true. When Hannah had lived here, Brennan had completely, one-hundred-percent given up her dream of being with Booth. And to be here now, with his lips sealed scorchingly against hers, his tongue invading her mouth so temptingly, and the feel of his most personal body parts married to hers. It was overwhelming. Impossible to describe.

And maybe it was the thought of how close she had come to losing their entire relationship when Hannah had lived here... or maybe it was the fact that her first look at his bed sent her heart tripping into panic. The bed was unmade with rumpled gray sheets thrown into chaos, as if the serious-as-a-heart-attack woman who'd most recently received his attentions there had gotten up only moments ago. As if one side of the bed might still hold the impression and lingering warmth of the gregarious blonde and the paltry weight of her simple youth. As if she had just stepped out of bed for a moment but might be coming back.

Booth felt her tense in his arms, felt her go rigidly still, and looked at her anxiously. Her face was an unreadable mask of tension, and she was fixated on his bedroom behind him. He turned to see what she was seeing, but comprehended nothing.

"Bones? Baby? What's wrong?" he asked, still breathing heavily.

"I-" she backed away from him suddenly and his body already felt chilled without her presence.

"Talk to me. What is it?" he begged, his concern increasing exponentially as her face remained impassive and wan, all that molten desire inexplicably cooled to ash.

"I'm sorry... I have to go," she mumbled, breaking from his arms and hastily returning the shoulder strap of her dress to its rightful place. "I'm sorry," she called again, striding quickly from the room and leaving Booth in a state of shock and disbelieving pain.

His chest felt tight, like the blood couldn't get to his heart because his heart was being squeezed by something. He wondered for a second if he was having some sort of stroke. He felt light-headed, shaky.

By the time he realized that he needed to go after her, he'd pounded down the stairs to find her already gone, having probably evaporated in some godforsaken taxi like she always seemed to.

He plodded up the steps slowly, feeling on the verge of either punching the wall or crying like a giant girl.

What had just happened? Everything had been going so, _so _well... and then... And then Bones had just... _stopped._ Simply shut herself off in his arms like a marionette doll who had run out of revolutions. Was it something he'd done? Or not done?

Dear God... the thought that maybe he'd just sexually molested his partner... But no, she'd been willing, right? I mean, she'd seemed _really... _but then she'd never actually said... because God, he didn't ask...

_Shit shit shit, _his brain drummed in rhythm as he dredged his fingers through his hair and collapsed onto the edge of the bed. The bed! She'd been looking at the bed when she'd...

Like a true investigator, Booth hopped up and turned to stand where Brennan had been, observing his room from her vantage point as if he had never seen it. As if he were Bones.

Okay, a few pieces of dirty laundry in the corner, maybe a little too much dust on top of his dresser... a general lack of decoration, but nothing to freak her out like that. She had acted like she'd seen a _ghost. _

And suddenly he realized, looking down at the bed, the way the sheets were flung haphazardly across it, the pillows in disarray, that from Brennan's perspective, it might look too much like... like someone had been there recently other than him. Like _dozens _of someones had been there.

He remembered the lost look on her face and knew somehow that he was right. She'd seen his bed and for some reason, she'd thought of Hannah. Of how recently the other woman had shared this very bed- not only as a temporary occupant but as the bed she returned to each night. As _her _bed; as home. This wasn't just his bed anymore. It had been Hannah's too.

"Oh Bones," he whispered into his lonely bedroom, heartsick for the mess that had flourished disease-like around both of them. Just when he thought they had shaken it, the pathogen resurfaced, ripping this singular chance from his hands and dusting Bones' beautiful face with hopelessness.

Then, a beacon in the darkness, his phone lit to life in his hand. A text, from Bones.

_Not running. Was just too much too soon. Realized u just broke up with H, probably need space/time. Shouldn't have asked u on date yet. Sorry for all of it. -T_

Booth collapsed back in exhaustion. Part of him was relieved; the Bones of even one year ago wouldn't have been considerate enough to send him any message. But the Bones of now clearly wasn't being totally honest about what had upset her.

Dammit, she wasn't upset that Hannah had been with him so recently; she was upset that Hannah had been with him _at all. _And the damn bed had served to rub the whole situation in her face again. They would need to talk about this again. Even if Bones was ready to forgive, apparently she wasn't ready to forget. He'd been so stupid, _again._

Booth went through his nighttime rituals and got ready for bed. It was a very different end to his evening that he would have expected when he'd first gotten home with Brennan's limbs wrapped around him like a starfish.

He knew that sleep would be a long time coming that night. The combination of guilt and disappointment, layered over the near-constant state of arousal he'd been suffering since finding her at the bar, was going to vex him for hours still, he knew. But he needed to get at least a little rest, because tomorrow he had important work to do. He was going to burn his fucking bed to a pile of scorched cinders and ask Bones to _please _try again.

**AN: Whew! Writing kissedy scenes is always nerve-wracking. Could you let me know how it was? Things to improve? Thanks for reading! Xoxox- Maggie**


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